We’re nearly at the the flip of the NHL calendar from 2024-25 into 2025-26. As the Florida Panthers look to hoist their second consecutive Stanley Cup later today and close the chapter on the 2024-25 season, we’re now also under two weeks away from the 2025 NHL Draft. Currently holders of the 24th overall pick with seven total picks across the two-day event, this year’s NHL Draft will be hosted here in Los Angeles at Peacock Theater in LA Live beginning on Friday, June 27th at 4:00 PM local time.
Before we dive into all of the potential and promising prospects that the Kings could take in this year’s draft, we are going to kickstart our 2025 NHL Draft coverage on LAKI with a refresher and look back at the Kings 2024 draft class. Only four players were selected, due to a combination of trades in the previous years and multiple draft day trades, as the Kings selected three skaters and one goalie. Selections came in the first, second, sixth and seventh round, beginning with Liam Greentree on Day 1.
Though a small draft class and only one year removed from their joining the organization, the Kings four prospects are already showing great promise. More on those four players below, as we sit 10 days out from the NHL Draft!
Liam Greentree (1st Round, 26th overall): Windsor Spitfires, OHL
Originally supposed to draft 21st overall in 2024, the Kings traded with the Montreal Canadiens to move back five spots. In doing so, the Kings also added a pair of draft picks in the 2024 draft, picking up the 57th overall pick (second round) and the 198th overall pick (seventh round).
Greentree wound up being atop the Kings' board when 26th overall came around as he fell into their lap, allowing the Kings to select the 6-foot-3, 216-pound winger. Hailing from Oshawa, Ontario, Greentree captained the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires for a second season during 2024-25 and led all first rounders in his draft class in scoring, including 14 other CHL players. Totaling 119 points (49-70-119) across 64 games this past season, Greentree ranked third in the OHL in points and fourth in the league in plus/minus at +55. Greentree ranked second in the OHL in shots on goal (306), averaging out to 4.78 shots on goals per game (SOG/GP) and he was recognized three times in the OHL’s year-end coaches’ poll. With voting separated by conference, Greentree was voted as the Western Conference’s most dangerous player in the goal area, the player with the second best shot and ranked third in the category for the hardest shot.
Greentree’s OHL season ended in an unfortunate fashion as he and his Spitfires had pulled out to 3-0 series lead in the second round of the playoffs before ultimately dropping four straight games against the Kitchener Rangers amid a team-wide virus. Greentree, who missed Game 5 due to illness, attempted to play through the illness in Game’s 6 and 7 but couldn’t rally the team to victory. Following the Game 7 defeat, Windsor’s head coach Greg Walters stated his proudness of Greentree’s effort to play in the final two games of the series and that there was no way he should’ve been on the ice if the circumstances were any different. Greentree’s playoff run ended after 11 games where he totaled 24 points (14-10-24), the most points in the OHL postseason at the time of his elimination.
Carter George (2nd Round, 45th overall): Owen Sound Attack, OHL
The first of the two additional picks that the Kings had acquired earlier in the day was used to select the 6-foot-1, 190-pound goalie Carter George. Out of Thunder Bay, Ontario, the selection of George at 57 surprised some externally but from what we’ve seen from the goalie in last 12 months, 57th overall might’ve been a steal. George’s impressive journey thus far began with eye-opening showings at development camp just after last year’s draft, the rookie tournament last September and even in a pair of Kings preseason games. From there, George returned to the OHL and took the net for a young and undermanned Owen Sound team. Appearing in 47 games during the 2024-25 regular season, George went 17-22-6 with a .909 save percentage and a 3.35 goals-against average. On the bright side, George saw a ton of rubber, facing an OHL most 1,665 shots during the season, averaging out to over 35 shots per game. George willed the Attack into the playoffs, though they were defeated by the eventual OHL-champion London Knights.
Also getting recognition in the year-end OHL coaches’ poll, to no one’s surprise George was voted as his conference’s best puckhandling goalie and was second in the category of the best shootout goalie. Furthermore, the Attack jersey was not the only set of threads that George put on during the 2024-25 season. Beginning with representing his country, George was the starting goalie for Team Canada for the 2025 World Junior Championships in his nation’s capital Ottawa. While the tournament did not go as the Canadian team had planned or hoped, George was solid in his appearances. In five games, George led the tournament with two shutouts, a .936 SV% and a 1.76 GAA.
Following the conclusion of his season in the OHL, George traveled down to Southern California and initially joined the Ontario Reign. Reporting to the Reign before eventually becoming one of the Kings black aces during the playoffs, George took the net the for team’s AHL affiliate twice and was remarkable. George went 2-0-0, recorded one shutout, had a 0.50 GAA and a .984 SV% on 60 total shots across the two games played, a strong debut into professional hockey.
Jared Woolley (6th Round, 164th overall): London Knights, OHL
Well, if you if frequent LAKI often, you’re probably well aware of the season and run that Jared Woolley just went on. Featured last week, you can see the more in-depth look at Jared Woolley’s road to becoming a two-time OHL champion and just recently a Memorial Cup champion here.
As Day 2 carried on, Mark Yannetti and the Kings decided to move up in the draft to select Woolley. Slated to select 182nd overall in the sixth round, the Kings moved up 18 picks, trading away that pick and their own seventh-pick at 214 to the Anaheim Ducks to pick 164th overall. Woolley has since taken great strides towards becoming not just a big body at 6-foot-5, 207-pounds, but a productive two-way defenseman that contributed on both ends of the ice. Explained further in last week’s feature, Woolley was part of a stacked blue line for the London Knights. Only recording a pair of power play points during the regular season, Woolley provided offensive production outside of being on the man advantage. With 28 points (9-19-28) across the 2024-25 season, Woolley was tied for the second most among defensemen on his Knights team in non-power-play points, a blue line with what will have had three-first round draft picks along with an offensive-defenseman who was taken in the fifth round as well.
James Reeder (7th Round, 198th overall) Denver University, NCAA
Rounding out the Kings 2024 draft class and the third piece in that three-for-one trade that saw the Kings get Greentree and George earlier in the draft, the Kings selected the 5-foot-10, 167-pound James Reeder out of Glenview, Illinois. Reeder had previously put together an impressive season averaging over a point per game in the USHL the year prior and he stepped right into a middle-six role this past season as an 18-year-old at Denver University.
Playing in a notoriously mature NCHC conference had a promising freshman year recording 21 points (11-10-21) in 44 games. Entering his freshman year on a team that had just won their NCAA-most eighth national championship the year prior, Reeder and the Pioneers came up two wins short of a repeat falling in the semifinals of the Frozen Four to fellow prospect Hampton Slukynsky and the eventual NCAA champions Western Michigan University. Reeder’s 21 points were the sixth most among forwards on his team and the most of any freshman on Denver. Look for Reeder to be back at Denver this season, with the possibility of an enhanced role with the team this coming season as a sophomore.
