Five East First Rounders With AHL Numbers And NHL Questions

All five Eastern Conference first-round picks flagged in a new list of players who need to stick in the NHL this season spent most of 2025-26 producing in the American Hockey League. That is the problem.

The piece, published by The Hockey Writers and syndicated by Yardbarker, names Montreal's Filip Mesar, Philadelphia's David Jiricek, Pittsburgh's Owen Pickering, Tampa Bay's Conor Geekie and Washington's Ivan Miroshnichenko.

Geekie is the starkest case. The centerpiece of the Mikhail Sergachev trade played 14 NHL games last season and put up 59 points in 57 AHL games. Miroshnichenko has followed a similar curve in Hershey: 34 points in 41 games in the AHL against 13 NHL appearances and three points. He was part of the Bears' Calder Cup team in 2023-24.

Pickering led Wilkes-Barre/Scranton defensemen with 28 points in 68 games, but appeared in only four games with the Penguins after getting 25 the season before. Jiricek, the sixth pick in 2022 and now a Flyer after time with Minnesota, split 39 AHL games between Iowa and Lehigh Valley for 23 points while going pointless in 26 NHL games.

Mesar is the one who has not made it up at all. After 52 points in 45 OHL games with Kitchener in 2023-24, he topped out at 27 points in 71 games with Laval last season.

The list's own caveat is worth keeping: Tage Thompson, Nazem Kadri and Valeri Nichushkin all needed longer runways, and Nichushkin needed a new address.