When Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis fielded calls from scouts and NHL executives last spring ahead of the 2025 NHL Draft, each conversation ended the same way.
While teams were keen to gather every bit of intel they could on top talents like Brady Martin (the eventual fifth-overall pick to Nashville) and a handful of other prospects available out of the OHL club, inquiring hockey minds also wanted to know about the new kid suddenly starring on the Greyhounds’ blue line, not yet draft eligible but already turning heads.
A mere half season into his OHL career, after being called up from the Bismarck Bobcats of the North American Hockey League in December 2024, defenceman Chase Reid was garnering plenty of interest with his smooth skating, lethal shot, elite puck movement and the vision to match. Skillsets like that don’t appear out of nowhere, but Reid’s arrival and ensuing success on the OHL circuit happened so swiftly, onlookers could be excused for believing his had.
“A lot of NHL teams would call,” Raftis says. “We had four guys go in that draft, so there was lots of talking to teams, and every time you're wrapping up the phone call, it would be like, 'Hey, quick question: Where do you think Chase Reid would go in this draft if he was eligible?’ So right there, you knew he was already a big conversation piece."
The talk around Reid has only grown louder, the praise more enthusiastic, in the year since as the defenceman doubled down on last season’s success and continued to climb the prospect rankings ahead of the 2026 Draft, where his is expected to be one of the first names called Friday night.
An exciting talent with first-round intrigue a year ago — even with just 39 OHL games to his name at the time, Raftis believed Reid had done enough to play his way into the opening night of picks in last year’s class — Reid is now the second-ranked North American skater according to NHL Central Scouting and in the mix to be the top rearguard off the board.
“The switch flipped very quickly with him, and that's why I think he's getting so much attention now,” Raftis says. “Like, every six months, you see where he comes from and where he's [going]. It's scary.”
Raftis knew Reid had potential when his Greyhounds selected the defenceman in the seventh round (125th overall) of the 2023 OHL Priority Selection Draft. He saw Reid’s confidence start to build during the Greyhounds’ development camp a month later, and watched from afar as Reid continued to progress close to home with the Michigan-based Victory Honda AAA under-16 team, where he produced at nearly a point-per-game pace in 2023-24.
But while Raftis saw clear potential, and a work ethic to match, in the young Michigander, the GM says he “could never have fathomed” just how quickly Reid’s talent would develop — and how high up the scouting ranks he’d rise.
As meteoric as it was, Reid’s progression wasn’t linear. His confidence took a hit to start the 2024-25 season when he was cut from the USHL’s Waterloo Black Hawks — the team with which he spent a 10-game stint the year prior — and instead landed in Bismarck with the tier-two NAHL’s Bobcats. There, he toiled as a No. 4 defenceman before getting the call that drastically changed his trajectory.
In early December 2024, Raftis found himself in need of an extra defender while then-Greyhound Andrew Gibson joined Team Canada at the World Junior Championship. The call-up came with no promise of a long-term stay, just an opportunity for both player and organization to see whether things clicked.
“We weren't sure how fast he would jump on board in terms of, you know, it's a different level, it's a different speed of game,” says Raftis. “Week-to-week, you could just see it coming very quickly.”
As Raftis recalls, Reid’s first game with the Greyhounds saw him play about 12 minutes. His second brought a bump up to around 18. And then, says Raftis, “it just took off.”
Looking back, Raftis credits Reid’s skating as the biggest on-ice factor for his success — that, and a growth spurt.
"The summer before he jumped on board with us, I think his skating really took a step. He was always a very smart player, always had great offensive instincts, and he started to grow — I think he was about six feet when we drafted him, and he ended up closer to six-foot-two [when he arrived],” says Raftis. “It doesn't matter what level you're at, when you have a right-shot defenceman that has that size and instincts — and then all of a sudden the skating started to pop for him — you could see it coming together very quickly."
By early January, when the Greyhounds dealt Gibson to the Oshawa Generals, Reid had already entrenched himself on the Soo roster, proving himself a quick study. By season’s end, he’d racked up 40 points in 39 games, leading all OHL rookies in assists (33) and earning First All-Rookie Team honours.
One year later, he’s built on that first-year success with a sensational draft-season showing — both with the Greyhounds, where he posted marathon minutes, more than doubled his goal output, and was named to the club’s leadership core, and with Team USA’s world junior squad, where he registered four points in five games in his first-ever international tournament.
Throughout, he’s continued to evolve, unafraid to take a step back offensively at times to hone his defensive abilities, which resulted in him being recognized in an OHL coaches poll as one of the top defensive defencemen in the league.
“I think he takes a lot of pride in that, because I think he didn't want to just be a one-dimensional, point-producer, power-play guy,” says Raftis. “He wanted to be somebody that could be counted on, and obviously he played a ton of minutes with us and kind of proved that.”
In Reid, who has committed to play the 2026-27 season at Michigan State, Raftis sees similar traits to reigning Norris Trophy-winner Zach Werenski, thanks to his elite skating and puck-moving abilities, as well as shades of John Carlson from the NHL veteran’s junior days: "The big shot, can play heavy minutes, play against your best matchups, that type of thing. That was somebody that kind of stuck out a little bit," he says.
Raftis also sees a player driven not to prove his doubters along the way wrong, but rather to prove those who’ve believed in him right.
“I think a lot of people think he has this chip on his shoulder — which he does, and he's very confident — but I think it's more so like, 'Hey, you guys believed in me, and I'm gonna prove you guys right,'" Raftis says.
Come Friday night, one lottery team will begin to learn that firsthand.
Thinking back to those early scouting calls a year ago, Raftis can’t help but laugh now at how true his quip at the time turned out to be.
“We were kind of almost laughing about it, like, 'Wait 'til you see next year!'” says Raftis. “And, sure enough."
