Ranking the Top 5 Dallas Stars Prospects From Development Camp

The Dallas Stars ran their 2026 Development Camp from June 29 to July 2 at Comerica Center in Frisco, four days of free, open sessions built around a 35-player camp roster of 22 forwards, nine defensemen and four goaltenders. I was there all four days, from Monday’s teaching drills to Thursday’s skills competition and mini game. A development camp is the organization’s first real installation week with its prospects; four days of drills, battles and a closing mini tournament still tell you plenty about who these players are.

So here’s my top five coming out of the week. The factors I prioritized are as follows: age, skill, and potential to be of use to the Stars.

5. Niilopekka Muhonen Skates Like a Much Smaller Man

Niilopekka Muhonen is the most interesting bet on the blue line. The 6-foot-5 Finn, a 2024 fifth-rounder (158th overall), looked strikingly agile for his size all week, confident on his edges and comfortable skating pucks out of pressure. I’ve had NHL-caliber skating at this size in his file since his Medicine Hat Tigers days, with defensive range and off-puck reads as the to-do list. His best sequence came in Thursday’s mini-game, forcing a turnover and springing Dylan Hryckowian with a clean neutral-zone pass for the game’s first goal. Big defensemen who move like this rarely last to the fifth round, which is why Dallas already has him on a three-year entry-level deal and why the comparison in my camp guide is a Finnish version of Lian Bichsel.

He won a Western Hockey League (WHL) championship with Medicine Hat in 2025 and reached the Memorial Cup Final, then played an injury-interrupted final junior season in a top-four role. He turns pro with Texas this fall at 20. The offense is modest, and the American Hockey League (AHL) will test every detail. The frame, the mobility and the appetite for contact are the foundation, and the foundation is real.

4. Atte Joki Brought His Liiga Habits to Frisco

Atte Joki was my quiet winner of the week, and I’ll disclose the bias up front: I’ve tracked him for a year, even caught a couple of his Rauma Lukko games in person. My file from his draft spring was a bit clunky: a labored, energy-burning stride and decision-making that flip-flopped from viewing to viewing. The 2025 fifth-rounder (146th overall) spent last season as an 18-year-old regular for Lukko in Liiga, Finland’s top pro league, earning five-on-five shifts and penalty-kill trust against pros, and it showed. On the reception drills, pucks off the foot, out of the air, catch-and-spin, he was calm and mechanically clean while others fought the setups. In the mixed sessions, he was patient, made the simple right play, and never looked rushed.

That’s what a pro year buys a teenager. The 6-foot-2, 201-pound center projects as a bottom-six, penalty-killing piece rather than a scorer; his stride still needs work. But he doesn’t turn 19 until July 21; he already handles men’s-league pressure, and he moves to HIFK for 2026-27, a bigger stage inside the same development system. On an age-adjusted basis, few players in this camp are further along.

3. Jakub Vaněček Looked the Part of a Value Pick

Dallas sent out its 2026 first-rounder in the Mikko Rantanen deal, so Jakub Vaněček, taken 59th overall on June 27, sat at the top of the five-pick 2026 draft class, and several public boards had him 30 to 40 spots higher. The early returns in Frisco backed the value case. His footwork and stickhandling stood out in the defense group from the first drills, and the coaching staff was audibly encouraging with him all week.

Listed at 6-foot-1, 191 pounds on the camp roster, the Czech had 35 points (14 goals, 21 assists) in 59 games as a WHL rookie with the Tri-City Americans, with the 14 goals leading first-year defensemen in the league, then paced Czechia with three goals at the Under-18 Worlds on the way to bronze.

“He’s a two-way guy, but he showed more offense in April.” “We knew he was good prior to that, but we thought he took it to another level. Really liked the skill set on him and good size as well. He’s a two-way guy, but he showed more offense, I think, in April than he showed in the Western Hockey League throughout the year, so it was good to see.”

Source – ‘2026 NHL draft: Get to know the Dallas Stars’ selections’ – Stars director of amateur scouting Joe McDonnell – Dallas Morning News – June 27, 2026

Vaněček flew in from Czechia days after the pick and said of his first Stars practice, “Everything happens quickly.” Vaněček’s roadmap is a slow, deliberate one, back to Tri-City this season and then Western Michigan in 2027-28. His best skill is puck management, and my file from his rookie year says the same thing I saw at development camp: he’s excellent at moving the puck up ice, and his rush defense has become a strength.

2. Cameron Schmidt Showed the Weapon and the Counter

I believe Cameron Schmidt is the most dangerous offensive player Dallas has outside the NHL, and watching him at development camp, you saw that on full display. On Day 1, he toe-dragged through two defenders while cutting across the crease. But one rep later, he was bodied off the puck, and by the end of the week, the players were adjusting to his danger: they closed his space faster, angling him wide, pushing the 5-foot-8, 158-pound winger off pucks before the hands could work.

To his credit, you could see him speeding up and still beating players, but until he wins those battles more often, the tools alone won’t carry him against older bodies. Because the defenders targeting it in the NHL are faster and more powerful than anyone at a development camp.

The 19-year-old led the WHL with 51 goals last season, finished third in scoring with 100 points in 72 games between the Vancouver Giants and Seattle Thunderbirds, and was a Player of the Year finalist. In May, he was traded to the Victoria Royals for the seventh overall pick in the WHL Prospects Draft and a 2028 fourth-rounder, a price that says plenty about how the league values him.

The roadmap for small players winning battles sits in this organization’s recent past. Logan Stankoven heard identical questions at the same size, told The Score in 2023 that his own to-do list was straight-line speed and “winning my walls,” then he spent a full AHL season on exactly that, leaning on a low center of gravity and added strength to win inside ice. When Dallas called him up in February 2024, his 57 points led the league, and he never went back. Schmidt’s assignment isn’t to get bigger. It’s to follow that same roadmap, and that took Stankoven two and a half years of deliberate work from draft night to call-up.

I gave Schmidt the best skating and shooting grades in my development camp fan guide, and I’ll go one further: if Schmidt puts all the pieces together, his ceiling is higher than Stankoven’s.

1. Emil Hemming Is Ready for the Pro Jump

Emil Hemming, the 29th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, is Dallas’s best prospect, and this was his third development camp. Hemming’s file had him split between two futures anyway: middle-six checker with an NHL shot on some nights, top-six scorer on others. At his third camp, he was at his best in the cycle and small-area work, calm and mistake-free inside structure, and he spent much of the week running with fellow Finns Kuhta and Joki.

The smartest rep of the week was his: in Thursday’s four-on-two work, he dropped low off a read, and when the puck came loose, it was already sitting where he’d chosen to stand. In the mini-game, he pulled pucks out of heavy pressure without panic and linked up with Hryckowian on his team’s best sequences.

In his last season, he was sent back to the Barrie Colts after a scoreless five-game AHL cameo in October (to his credit, none of the Texas Stars were scoring). Hemming put up 63 points (26 goals, 37 assists) in 46 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) games, then added 28 points in 21 playoff games as the Colts won the Eastern Conference before the Kitchener Rangers swept them in the Final. Hemming still scored in three of those four games, with a World Junior bronze in between. He told reporters in Frisco the Texas stint mattered: “Those five games opened my eyes that by working hard I can do that.”

The Mavrik Bourque trade turned Hemming into a real NHL roster option. My full take can be captured in a breakdown of Hemming article, but to sum it up: as he stands today, he’s not ready. He has aspects of his game that are NHL-grade. But there are plenty of skills that are not quite there. The cap crunch is what complicates the clean answer. Dallas just moved a 20-goal scorer for futures with the Jason Robertson situation still unresolved, and a capped-out contender could use this moment for an entry-level deal in its bottom nine. The cap crunch is what complicates the clean answer. Dallas just moved a 20-goal scorer for futures to clear room for Jason Robertson, whose deal remains unresolved and who is now expected to file for arbitration, and a capped-out contender needs entry-level deals in its bottom nine.

With Tyler Seguin still recovering before the start of the season, Hemming could get NHL minutes before he’s a finished product, and growing under the pressure of NHL game time is a real development path of its own. The default plan remains the full-time jump to the AHL, but September’s rookie showcase and the Detroit games could be the audition Hemming needs to prove himself ready.

The Just-Missed Group and the Next Checkpoint

Three names sat right outside the five. Hryckowian, 22, was probably the best-looking player in Frisco, and Thursday made the case one more time: he controlled the four-on-two drills, pulled defenders out of position, talked teammates up between reps, then ran a man down on a backcheck. It has been said many times that he might be the more skilled of the two Hryckowian brothers, which is great when the other one is already a Dallas regular. I still can’t separate the player from the age gap (a 22-year-old on an entry-level deal skating against teenagers should look like that.) I want a full AHL season before any call-up talk starts. He and Hemming both look locked in for September’s rookie showcase and the Detroit games.

Aram Minnetian, 21, ran the defense sessions all week and sits in the same older-and-closer bucket, which cuts against a list weighted to age and ceiling. Jasper Kuhta, a seventh-round re-entry who scored 32 OHL goals after going undrafted in 2025, kept flashing in small doses: a skate pass to himself Monday, a net-front sequence under pressure midweek, a faceoff win turned into a mohawk breakout Thursday, before he heads to UMass.

And credit where it’s due at the wrap: Jaxon Fuder took home camp MVP after the closing shootout, the heavy-hitting Red Deer Rebels winger playing the exact pro-pace checking style scouts tagged him with, and Matteo Drobac was the steadiest goalie on the ice, stopping Minnetian on a penalty shot and holding up whenever the mini game tilted his way.

The next checkpoint is September’s rookie showcase and the Detroit games, where Hemming’s audition starts for real, and Hryckowian gets to show that the camp dominance carries over against pros. Mark your calendars. That’s where this list gets its first grades back.