2025 NHL Draft profile: Lynden Lakovic, Moose Jaw Warriors

Kelowna, B.C.- There’s not much that Lynden ‘Laks’.

The Moose Jaw Warriors Captain boasts size, skill, championship pedigree, and a dogged willingness to round out his game- and those are just some of the characteristics that have made him a prime prospect for the 2025 NHL Draft.

Tipping the scales at 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds, Lakovic is coming off a career season that saw him pot 27 goals and 31 assists for 58 points in an injury-shortened 47-game campaign.

NHL Central Scouting has ranked him 14th among all North American skaters in the agency’s final rankings, with TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button projecting Lakovic as a mid-first-round pick.

“A big winger that can that can score goals,” Button assessed. “You talk about playing along the wall and playing down low and holding the puck and making opponents uncomfortable-Lynden is not only able to carve out space for himself, but he’s able to hold that space. He becomes a really difficult player to keep in check, so to speak.”

The 18-year-old had a lot to build on after a promising sophomore season in 2023-24 that saw him score five goals (including three overtime winners) to help the Warriors lift the Ed Chynoweth Cup as WHL Champions for the first time in franchise history.

With Moose Jaw firmly in rebuilding mode, Lakovic has found new opportunities to grow the physical side of his game while taking the reins as a leader on the new-look East Division squad in 2024-25.

“I have a really big frame, and it’s kind of a gift,” Lakovic said. “You’ve got to learn how to use what’s given to you, what’s in your toolbox. I think just using your body as leverage. Come playoff time, yeah, I think you need to hit guys and be physical, because that’s what’s going to wear them down, but in more specific scenarios like getting to the netfront and using your body going into battles, you’re using your body.”

It helped him earn an invitation to the first-ever CHL USA Prospects Challenge presented by Kubota Canada, where he notched the showcase-opening goal and added an assist over the US NTDP in a 6-1 victory.

However, Lakovic missed more than a month of hockey after suffering a lower-body injury on December 28.

Still, he opted to spend his recovery period in Moose Jaw to stay close to his team and keep spirits high, adding that he felt it was important to show his teammates that he was committed to them through thick and thin.

It’s one of the things he’s most proud of from his draft year- and a big part of why he was named Captain in his first game back on February 14, 2025.

“We saw that right from training camp this year,” Warriors Head Coach Mark O’Leary said. “We knew that it was going to be a rebuild this year, but just watching the way that he is with his teammates, especially the the younger ones coming in, not only leading by example, but going out of his way to make sure that those guys are comfortable and they’re being led the right way. I think he got that as a young guy with the group that we had, and it was really nice to see that, without any pushing from us, he just really became a leader.”

Notably, Lakovic has also started working with a sports psychologist to build new habits into his game-day routines and find more consistency on the ice.

“There was a stretch of games where I wasn’t playing too well, and I was just really hard on myself and putting a lot of stress on myself,” Lakovic explained. “I reached out to my agent and he got me in contact with this guy, and it went hand in hand from there. I think it’s the mental side is just as or more important than the physical aspect of it. I think it’s really benefited me, and, you know, all the guys that are working with them would probably say the same.”

“As good as he is, the room that he has for improvement is going to stay untapped potential, unless you’re honest in your own self-evaluation and your self-awareness in terms of what you need to work on,” O’Leary added. “Lak doesn’t run away from that. He knows what his strengths are, and he knows where he can improve… Whether it’s the compete level, being harder on pucks, or being more competitive to come up with pucks on your own end, I think he made huge strides in that this year. There’s still another gear to get to, but I think it only helps him that he’s honest in that and he’s very coachable in those areas.”

Post-injury, Lakovic ended up tying for the seventh-most goals of any WHL skater in the home stretch of the season with 10 lamp-lighters and nine assists in his final 18 games.

The West Kelowna, B.C. product held court with 25 different NHL teams at the annual NHL Combine in Buffalo, N.Y., at the beginning of the month.

Lakovic also finished 4th in the standing long jump (at an astonishing 117 inches) and 13th in the anaerobic fatigue index in fitness testing.

He’ll be in Los Angeles with his parents, brother (Von, a Kelowna Rockets prospect), sister, aunt, uncle and cousins as he waits to hear which NHL team will ultimately call his name.

The NHL Draft runs on June 27 and 28, 2025.