How exceptional Michael Misa unlocked his potential ahead of Draft

BUFFALO — Michael Misa, for better or worse, is used to being the centre of attention. But it wasn’t until a move back to the middle of the ice that the 18-year-old validated his exceptional status and showed the hockey world his true high-end potential.

Misa is one of those players who feels like he’s older than he is because you’ve been hearing about him for so long. Like John Tavares, Aaron Ekblad, Connor McDavid and a very select group of other players before him, Misa was granted exceptional-player status to compete in the OHL at the age of 15.

Ahead of his first OHL season with the Saginaw Spirit, in 2022-23, it seemed likely Misa would eventually follow in the footsteps of those aforementioned players and be the top pick in an NHL Draft. And while the Oakville, Ont., product certainly showed he had some game during his first and second years in the league, it’s not as though his draft stock soared.

Even at the start of this year, Misa — fresh off winning a Memorial Cup with Saginaw in the spring of 2024 — did not get so much as an invite to Canada’s World Junior Championship selection camp.

Granted, Canada’s quarterfinal exit at the 2025 WJC would tell you the team made some poor decisions along the way, and Misa did nothing but show that team — and any club, really — they would be lucky to have his services.

After 22- and 29-goal seasons in his first two campaigns with Saginaw, Misa tore up the OHL in his draft-eligible year with a league-best 62 tallies in 65 games. He also paced the circuit with 134 points.

While it’s only natural Misa would be more comfortable as a third-year player than in his first couple campaigns, the real catalyst for his jump was a move from wing — where he played basically because the Spirit had a glut of more senior guys in the middle — back to the centre position he’d more or less skated at his entire hockey life prior to major junior.

“Ultimately, I wanted to make that jump back to centre and I think it helped my confidence level a lot,” Misa said Friday afternoon in Buffalo, where the 2025 NHL Scouting Combine is being held. “I just feel a lot more comfortable down the middle, got a lot more puck touches, just carrying the play on my stick more was definitely something that helped me.”

As if the numbers need any backing, the eye test certainly produced some A-plus reviews for Misa, too. Kris Mallette had seen Misa early in the latter’s major junior career, when Mallette was a Western Hockey League coach serving as an assistant on Canada’s 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup entry. Then, he got another close look at Misa this season when Mallette became the Erie Otters’ coach in February.

Mallette believes the shift to the middle unleashed the player’s potential.

“Once he got moved into centre, I think his game rounded out,” said Mallette, who also coached Misa at the CHL/USA Prospects Challenge in November. “He had to be around the puck a lot more, really dial in on that aspect of things. You put him in an area, he can beat you one-on-one, he can beat you with his shot and he’s got a knack for finding those holes to find the puck. He’s a real special player.”

That’s also the opinion of Jake O’Brien, a centre himself with the OHL’s Brantford Bulldogs and a player who could be selected inside the top 10 picks in three weeks at the draft.

“He’s obviously a really good player,” O’Brien said of Misa. “We played on a lot of the same teams growing up in spring hockey. I’ve seen him grow as a player and person. He’s just a really quick player, good hands, smarts.”

While you expect growth from any young athlete through the back end of their teens, Misa surely dealt with a more searing spotlight than your average — or even high-end — OHLer. He was, after all, just the ninth player granted exceptional status by the Canadian Hockey League. That brings the kind of attention few players — no matter how gifted — must wrestle with.

“Expectations were high, I think the pressures might have got to him a little bit,” said Mallette, thinking back to the kid he first met a couple years ago. “But really good, genuine person. The maturation in his game over these last two or three years has been really fun to watch. He’s a player I’ve been able to text and keep in contact with, so it’s really fun to watch him and his game, how it’s rounded out over these last three years.”

Again, Misa cites that move back to the middle as something that helped — not only in terms of eye-popping totals — but with the overall maturity Mallette alluded to.

“I feel like I am involved in the play a lot more, not just offensively but defensively, being reliable,” he said.

Suddenly, we’re talking about a nearly goal-per-game player at a premium position who’s by no means small at six-foot-one and determined to be good all over the ice. That’s why you’ve seen Misa shoot up mock drafts this spring, landing at No. 2 on many of them behind the guy he shared a table and a pair of microphones with on Friday at the combine, defenceman Matthew Schaefer of the Otters.

“Very smooth forward, can put the puck in the back of the net,” Schaefer said of Misa. “Skating ability is really good and his hockey I.Q. is off the charts.”

The same mock drafts — including that of Sportsnet’s Sam Cosentino — that have Misa at No. 2 usually feature Schaefer in the top spot.

The team that holds the No. 1 pick, the New York Islanders, took Misa out for dinner on Thursday night following what the player called a “great interview” with him on Monday.

While Schaefer may be the favourite to go No. 1, when you think about how a lack of offence has almost been a franchise-defining deficiency in New York for years, it’s easy to wonder about drafting an exceptional player who just now seems to be realizing his potential.

“Coming into this year, I think I had a lot to prove to myself and to the world,” Misa said. “I really just tried to leave everything on the ice and walk out of here with no regrets.”

The way he’s going, any team that passes on him might have a few of their own.