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Welcome to another draft profile here at AATJ! Today we are going to take a look at winger and USNTDP prospect Teddy Stiga. A native of Sudbury, Massachusetts, Sudbury grew up playing hockey in the Boston area before eventually joining the national team development program and playing his junior hockey with the national team and in the USHL. He had a heck of a draft-eligible season which was a massive improvement over years prior, so his draft rankings are kind of all over the place. It will be interesting to see how high he will go.
Who Is Teddy Stiga?
-LINK TO ELITE PROSPECTS STATS-
Stiga is a decently sized prospect, standing 5 foot 10 and weighing 176 pounds according to Elite Prospects. He might like to be a couple of inches taller, but that size can work in the NHL if he has the skills, it certainly won’t be a deterrent. Stiga was playing high school prep hockey in 2021-22 just outside of Boston at Belmont Hill, so he has risen sharply over the last couple of seasons to go from a high school player to a development team prospect. He is now committed to Boston College in the fall, opting to stay home in the Boston area, so he has the future path to success if he can succeed at the NCAA level.
Stiga made the jump in 2022-23 from high school prep hockey to the US National Team Development Program, and that season, he played 49 games for the U17 National Team plus another 27 for the USNTDP Juniors in the USHL. It was a decent first season considering where he was coming from, but it was far from top-tier draft prospect type stats. He had 21 points in those 49 games for the U17 team and produced 12 points in the 27 games he played in the USHL. Again, it was a good first step, but it meant that he had to make a really nice jump in his draft-eligible year to turn heads.
And, that is exactly what he did. This past year, he played in 61 games for the U18 National Team plus another 27 for the USNTDP Juniors in the USHL. His numbers in both situations were phenomenal and significantly improved over the season prior. For the U18 team, he had 79 points in those 61 games, with 36 goals and 43 assists. And in the USHL, he had 38 points in 27 games, with 18 goals and 20 assists. That comes to a combined 117 points in 88 games for 1.33 points per game. Those PPG numbers will get anyone noticed, and it makes Stiga an interesting prospect. What he produced this past season equates to first round talent, but what he did prior to this season was not. So it makes for divided opinions as you will see in the rankings.
