We’re back for the final edition of what has turned into a fun summer series here at Daily Faceoff. For those uninitiated, we’ve been spending the last three weeks looking at one under-the-radar prospect from each team with a chance to make some noise at the NHL level in the upcoming season.
One last time, a player must have appeared in fewer than five NHL games in his career through the end of the 2023-24 season to qualify for our list. Also, all first-round picks are ineligible for this exercise, since they hardly qualify as “under-the-radar” prospects.
For posterity, here are the links to our lists covering the Pacific Division, Central Division, and Metropolitan Division. Now, let’s finish things off with a look at the Atlantic!
Boston Bruins: John Farinacci, C
A third-round selection of the Arizona Coyotes back in 2019, John Farinacci fell victim to the numbers game in the desert and ultimately signed with the Bruins last summer after wrapping up a solid NCAA career at Harvard University. The Red Bank, New Jersey product might not project to be a top-six center at the top level, but he does offer upside at the position for a Bruins team that has dealt with well-documented issues down the middle since Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired from the NHL.
Farinacci, 23, spent most of his first pro season playing in a middle-six role with the AHL’s Providence Bruins, collecting 12 goals and 38 points in 71 games during the 2023-24 regular season and tacking on a goal and an assist in four playoff contests. The 6′, 185-pound right-handed center is a natural distributor who managed 15 helpers in just 20 games in his final year at Harvard, but he’ll need to add a few more dimensions to his game if he wants to stand out from the pack in Providence and earn call-up consideration at some point down the line.
Buffalo Sabres: Nikita Novikov, D
It’s always fun to see a player selected in the later rounds of the NHL Draft follow the trajectory of a future roster player, and that’s exactly what Nikita Novikov has done in the three years since Buffalo took him in the sixth round. The 6’3″ left-handed defender has taken gradual steps forward in each of the last three seasons, going from a KHL depth player in 2021-22 to a full-fledged KHL regular in 2022-23 to a bona fide AHL-level defender in 2023-24.
In 65 games with the AHL’s Rochester Americans last season, Novikov collected three goals and 23 points, impressive production for a player whose calling card is not his offensive ability. The Moscow, Russia product also suited up for all five of Rochester’s playoff contests, tacking on two assists. Now, it’ll be difficult for Novikov to crack a left side in Buffalo that also includes Owen Power, Bowen Byram, and Mattias Samuelsson — Rasmus Dahlin also shoots left — but he plays a steady, no-nonsense game that could quickly endear himself to head coach Lindy Ruff.
Detroit Red Wings: Carter Mazur, LW
The Red Wings surprised some onlookers by taking overage forward Carter Mazur in the third round of the 2021 NHL Draft, but the Jackson, Michigan-born winger has done nearly everything possible to prove them right in the years since. Mazur enjoyed two highly productive seasons at the University of Denver immediately after being drafted and subsequently finished second on the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins in scoring as a first-year pro.
The 22-year-old Mazur is a tenacious forward who relentlessly attacks opponents on the forecheck, wins most of his puck battles, and puts up points at a pretty impressive rate. Although he likely won’t play on the Red Wings’ top two lines once he makes the jump into the NHL, Mazur is a pretty safe bet to become one heck of a bottom-six forward if and when he does make it into Detroit’s lineup. He plays a style that should easily translate to the next level and it’s easy to imagine him popping off for a 20-goal season or two.
Florida Panthers: Michael Benning, D
There’s a lot going for Michael Benning. He’s a right-handed defenseman who spent three seasons at the University of Denver between 2020 and 2023, scoring 83 points in 101 games. He followed that up with a solid first professional season with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, racking up nine goals and 26 points in 72 games as a 21/22-year-old rookie in 2023-24. Beyond that, Benning’s contract carries a dirt-cheap $916,667 cap hit for the 2024-25 season, making him extremely easy for a cap-strapped Panthers team to call up at any time.
But there’s one glaring problem: Benning is only 5’9″, making him one of the shortest defensive prospects currently under contract with any NHL team. At 185 pounds, he’s got a bit of heft to him, but Benning will still need to prove he can handle the bigger bodies at the NHL level or he’ll risk being left behind. The Panthers certainly have a need for an offense-first puck-moving defenseman like Benning in their NHL lineup, especially after bidding farewell to Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson earlier this summer, but he’ll still have to contend with the likes of Adam Boqvist and Nate Schmidt for NHL minutes this season.
Montreal Canadiens: Emil Heineman, LW
Not many prospects drafted in the top two rounds are traded before they ever play a single professional game in North America. Emil Heineman was traded twice before he finally signed his entry-level deal with the Canadiens in 2023. The 2020 second-round pick started out in the Florida Panthers system before being sent to the Calgary Flames in 2021 as part of the Sam Bennett trade; then, less than a year later, the Flames included him in the Tyler Toffoli deal with Montreal.
Heineman started out hot with the AHL’s Laval Rocket in the latter stages of the 2022-23 season, collecting seven goals and nine points in his first 11 games, but he settled in as more of a second-line scoring forward with the team in 2023-24. The Leksands, Sweden product racked up 15 goals and 29 points in 48 games with Laval this past season and drew into his first four games with the Canadiens in the process. Standing in at 6′ and 202 pounds, Heineman will need to find more consistency in his game to make a go of it as a winger in Montreal’s lineup, but he has the scoring touch to earn more call-ups in future seasons.
Ottawa Senators: Stephen Halliday, C
The Senators have been the NHL’s most … unorthodox? … drafting team over the past few seasons, particularly near the end of Pierre Dorion’s tenure as general manager. It’s safe to say they’d like a do-over on taking Tyler Boucher at No. 10 overall in 2021, and the less said about the Ben Roger and Lassi Thomson picks, the better. But the Sens have also had their fair share of hits over the years, and it looks like they might’ve struck gold when they nabbed double-overager Stephen Halliday in the fourth round of the 2022 NHL Draft.
Halliday, who just turned 22 in July, is a 6’4″ playmaking center who put up 19 goals and 77 points in 78 games over two seasons at The Ohio State University immediately after being drafted. The Ajax, Ontario product signed an entry-level deal with the Senators this past spring and stepped right into game action with the AHL’s Belleville Senators, collecting five assists in 10 games to conclude the regular season before leading the team with nine points in seven playoff contests. Halliday could challenge for a spot in Ottawa out of training camp this fall, particularly if Josh Norris takes longer than expected to recover from the shoulder injury that ended his 2023-24 season.
Tampa Bay Lightning: Jack Finley, C
Owing to their heavy spending on win-now players at the height of their championship pursuits, the Lightning don’t have many top-tier prospects. They won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021, so it’s hard to say it wasn’t all worth it. But aside from Conor Geekie, who they acquired from Utah HC in the Mikhail Sergachev deal back in June, Tampa Bay’s top center prospect might just be 6’6″ Jack Finley, who is coming off back-to-back solid seasons with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch to begin his pro career.
Finley, who won’t turn 22 until September, was one of the youngest players in the draft when the Lightning selected him with their second-round pick in 2020. The St. Louis, Missouri product enjoyed a strong second half to the 2023-24 season and finished with 13 goals and 32 points in 52 games, enough to finish fifth on Syracuse’s scoring leaderboard. Finley projects as a bottom-six center at the NHL level, and while Geekie’s arrival won’t make it any easier for him to make the Lightning out of camp, Tampa Bay’s lack of depth could give him a chance to make his name more widely known at some point in the upcoming season.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Jacob Quillan, C
It was incredible to watch a relatively unheralded Quinnipiac Bobcats team capture the NCAA Championship in 2023 over a Minnesota side that included Logan Cooley, Brock Faber, Matthew Knies, Jimmy Snuggerud, Jackson LaCombe, and Ryan Johnson. It took a full team effort from the likes of Collin Graf, Sam Lipkin, Ethan De Jong, Zach Metsa, and Yaniv Perets to pull off that victory, but it was Jacob Quillan who truly turned the tide for Quinnipiac in that championship run.
The Dartmouth, Nova Scotia-born Quillan was named the Frozen Four’s Most Outstanding Player in 2023 after scoring three points in a 5-2 win over the University of Michigan and the overtime winning goal in the National Championship game against Minnesota. Quillan followed that up with 46 points in 39 games as a junior at Quinnipiac in the 2023-24 season, after which the Leafs signed him as an undrafted NCAA free agent. According to Daily Faceoff‘s Steven Ellis, “his growth the past two years, his cheap AAV and his ability to kill penalties and draw energy makes [Quillan] an interesting bottom-line option.”