2025 NHL Draft Prospect Profile: Cole Reschny

Upside Hockey's NHL Draft profile series: Aces Edition, Vol. 4

Upside Hockey’s prolific prospect profiler Trevor Curtis’s 2025 NHL draft eligible prospect profiles are all featured on our dedicated page for this with all featured prospects indexed in our table of contents alphabetically by last name. For the 2024 NHL Draft, for example, we had well over 200 prospect profiles completed.

Draft Thoughts (Aces Edition, Vol. 4):

LHC Cole Reschny (5'10.5", 187lbs)

Victoria (WHL): 62gp/ 26g/ 66a/ 92pts, +42, 44 PIM

By my count, C Cole Reschny (ranked # 25 NA Skaters, # 29 by McKenzie, # 11 by Button, #31 by Upside) piled up 46 points in the last 25 games of the regular-season with the Victoria Royals, who finished 5th-overall in the standings, and were eliminated from the post-season by Spokane in round #2. With 92 points, he was 9th in WHL scoring, but was 2nd-overall in playoff scoring in points-per-game (2.27), behind only Gavin McKenna, and ahead of Andrew Cristall, Berkly Catton, and others- posting an incredible 25 points in just 11 contests.

Cole Reschny (Victoria Royals)/Photos (Credit: Victoria Royals - Kevin Light)

With the Royals done for the year, Reschny (who wore an "A" for Victoria) punctuated the season by joining Team Canada in progress at the U-18 Tournament, and placed 11th-overall in scoring (7th in ppg, at 1.60), and 5th on the team (despite missing the first two games), with 5 goals and 8 points in 5 contests- en route to a gold medal. It was more of the same for him in last summer's Hlinka-Gretzky Cup, where he was tied for 5th-overall in scoring, and was tied for 1st on Team Canada, while winning another gold medal. His 3 goals and 7 points in 5 games at that event put him ahead of the aforementioned Gavin McKenna, as well as names like Caleb Desnoyers, and Brady Martin. Reschny is a well-rounded C, who may lack ideal size, but definitely doesn't lack heart, will, or compete.

First of all, Reschny is an excellent skater, with above-average speed, but he's not a burner. He has a springy first-step, but lacks overall explosiveness, and could use more strength in his lower-body to improve his power. The mechanics of his stride aren't perfect, with a bit of a knock-kneed step at times, but it appears to be otherwise smooth and projectable. He moves fluidly on his edges, changes direction smoothly, makes sharp cuts, and stays slippery, shifty, and elusive. Most importantly, he is able to push pace.

Reschny owns an elite brain, and reads the play like few others at the Major Junior level can, with high-end awareness, and top-shelf IQ in all three zones. These traits shine through in his playmaking, as well as his highly intelligent off-puck game, as he shows the ability to create space for both himself and for teammates, and makes passes that always seem to put the recipients in advantageous situations.

His movement with-and-without possession manipulates defenses to shift, and puts them off-balance; he employs delays, deception, and cut-backs to bait pressure, attacks up the middle to push back defenses and drag down defenders, and can expertly pry open passing seams.

With top-notch vision and soft-touch passing skills, he can thread the needle through traffic with cross-ice feeds, and usually with the perfect weight, velocity, and timing to the receiver's tape- he can execute one-touch passes, saucers over sticks, slips through triangles, and precision backhands. Often using give-and-go sequences, he relocates to a more dangerous position on the ice after dishing off to open more space, and supports the play by presenting himself as a high-value, playable option.

Using his strong spatial awareness, he reads gaps well and finds spaces to fill, using deception in the form of hesitations, stutter-steps, shifts of weight, fakes, and look-offs to force defenders to chase, and overcommit. Reschny's puck-skills are also exemplary, with the ability to handle in tight spaces, maintain control and catch smoothly at high-speed, settle down and corral wild passes while in-motion, and make plays while battling through contact. He protects quite well for a shorter player, and can deke goalies out of their equipment, and dangle around checkers.

While he isn't shy at all about shooting, he needs to improve the power of his wrister, and work on building a more deceptive release, as a high number of his shots get blocked or easily saved. His one-timer is difficult to stop though, and he adjusts his shot-selection well to fit the situation, with precision in his puck-placement when shooting from between the dots. Most of his tallies come from driving the inside with his stick on the ice, attacking the net from up the middle, and going to the net to pounce on rebounds.

Reschny is a details-oriented defensive stalwart with good habits, who pursues the puck like a dog on a bone, and disrupts enemy plays in every inch of the ice- backchecking with purpose and urgency. He's highly involved in-zone, from pressuring the point, to supporting his D down low and in front of the net; with his high-level awareness and anticipation, he is always in proper position to make stops proactively, eliminate secondary threats, stifle attacks to the middle, and drive opponents to the perimeter.

He sees plays as they are developing, poking away pucks, intercepting passes, blocking shots, and sweeping pucks off of sticks. Despite his stature, he's built like a fire-hydrant, and is farmboy strong, which enables him to adminster an effective physical game; he battles diligently in all the greasy areas, wins more than his fair share of 50/50 contests with his compete level alone, and gets inside on his adversaries a lot.

He isn't afraid to take a hit to make a play, and also moves through contact, fights his way out of pins, and goes to war with defenders in front of the net. Reschny forechecks with tenacity and grit to cause nightmares for puck-carriers, immediately turning the play around into the cycle upon turnover and recovery.

If there's any weaknesses in Reschny's game, they mostly lie in his lack of size; though he's uncommonly strong and resilient, he can still be pushed around by larger opponents, and he has to learn to manage contact better for the next level- as he takes a lot of hard hits. This kid REALLY knows how to hockey - look for him in the middle frame of the first-round.

See our 2025 NHL Prospect Profile home page for all of our profiles.

See where Reschny landed in our most recent mock draft: