2026 Edmonton Oilers Prospect Rankings: #10 William Nicholl

Position	Year Drafted	Highest Ranking	Lowest Ranking	2025 Ranking
C/LW	7th rd, 196th Ovr, 2024	#5	Unranked	#8

Nicholl’s development so far

The Ottawa-born product has proven himself to be a reliable top-line two-way forward for one of the CHL’s premier franchises. Although his point production has lagged over the past couple of years, Nicholl does have realistic NHL upside in his habits, motor, and play-facilitation ability.

This past season, Nicholl’s puck skills took a major step forward, allowing him to be a more consistent puck mover at the CHL level. This also blends nicely with recent growth in skating, as the forward has added more power and acceleration to his overall game, making him a smoother mover in general.

Season	League	Team	GP	Goals	Assists	Points
2023-24	OHL	London Knights	65	6	14	20
2024-25	OHL	London Knights	66	21	36	57
2025-26	OHL	London Knights	32	15	11	26
2025-26	AHL	Bakersfield Condors	5	1	0	1

Although the speedy forward lacked an explosive OHL campaign and has yet to have a truly breakout season, he remains a player to watch as his responsible two-way game should translate well to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors next season. The type of motor that Nicholl has can not be taught to a player, which makes him a valuable asset to the Oilers organization.

Transferability of Nicholl’s game aside, a slower start to the past season and a lack of a true breakout performance in his DY+1 and DY+2 seasons are moderate areas of concern. With the player being a seventh-round selection, the upside is quite significant if the Oilers can even find a fourth-line player in Nicholl.

Nicholl’s strengths and weaknesses

Nicholl continues to play a two-way forward’s game. The forward’s skill set is best defined by a high-compete level, quality hockey sense, and improved skating. Despite the limited point production, Nicholl’s game has taken a noticeable step ahead, furthering his adjustment to professional hockey this September.

The OHLer does need to overcome some bad habits in his game as Nicholl’s looks to adjust to the next level. This includes inconsistent puck skills, further physical growth, and further growth in his shooting. Nicholls has tendencies that can result in rushed plays and limited deception.

With the London Knights this past season, Nicholl returned on December 31 and proved to be one of their biggest weapons in all three zones. Across the regular season and playoffs, Nicholl averaged 21:06 of TOI, with 3:51 of it coming on the power play, and 1:31 of it on the penalty kill.

With Bakersfield at the end of the season, Nicholl served primarily in a fourth line role with 8:05 TOI.

Compete level

Nicholl’s game lives and dies by his compete level as his motor is a non-stop machine every single time the young forward hits the ice. This motor amplifies his defensive pressure with an element of absolute suffocation through smart angling, quality stick usage, and a ramped-up pace.

Nicholl is a defensive play disruptor in both the defensive forecheck and established defensive zone play. At the OHL level he mixes this with physicality, but at the AHL level, timing has found him greater success. The OHLer’s energy also rarely removes him as a factor from any play.

This combination of energy, angles, and motor forces opponents into unfavourable decisions and generates 3.6 takeaways per game. Nicholl’s compete is absolutely relentless.

Offensively, this motor also shines, as he has a high level of play commitment, keeps pace well with puck handlers (generating more option creation on the breakout), and can amplify his team’s offensive pressure in extended offensive zone setups. Offensively Nicholl’s motor and intensity drive more of his 5.8 zone entries a game then even his puck handling.

Nicholl shows a clear sense of pace control, and the Oilers prospect shows this through his motor, as he can push the speed of play up (with mixed results for his offensive teammates), or absolutely drain the pace of play to a halt (much to the benefit of his defensive teammates).

Endurance and intensity are evident for Nicholl. The Oilers prospect performs no matter the score, or period, and shows a relentless effort in every one of his 20 shifts. One of the best demonstrations of Nicholl’s intensity includes his willingness to get gritty on face-offs, where he used his motor and body leverage to win 52% of his draws this past season in convincing fashion.

Hockey sense

Nicholl blends his compete level with his hockey sense to be an incredibly responsible and reliable forward for any coach. This is largely due to quality play reading, a high hockey IQ, and a hint of opportunism. hockey sense is the main reason why Nicholl’s was able to generate 2.1 scoring chances a game at the OHL level.

There are plenty of small habits that the Oilers prospect does well, starting with quality scan rate; the young forward can then produce above-average play, reading, route creation, and positioning. In short, Nicholl always knew where to be on the ice, while simultaneously manipulating the lanes and timing to be open making the shifty forward a prime play facilitator.

Nicholl’s positioning is an overall reflection of his larger hockey IQ where his awareness, vision, and anticipation often made him a step ahead of his less experienced competition in both facilitating plays on the breakout and moving the puck in established zone instances.

Offensively, Nicholl had a 0.32 goals expected rate, but proved to be an even smarter setup man with his instincts, timing, and vision. The seventh-round pick is a key supporter who creates space, can move the puck in cycles, and extend offensive zone play with sheer smarts and willpower.

Defensively, Nicholl’s is a hound with quality risk awareness, defensive instincts, and an extremely active stick. Nicholl consistently takes away time/space while slowing down opponent breakouts drastically. There were moments in his AHL stint when the 2006-born prospect looked to be more responsible than some of the AHL veterans in Bakersfield.

With Nicholl’s reach, instincts, and defensive pressure support/exertion, the Oilers prospect keeps risks down. So much so that the seventh-round pick has only 0.19 errors leading to a goal rate, and 1.02 scoring chances saved per game. The 2024 draftee is a pure two-way forward with clear defensive shutdown upside.

Skating

This was Nicholl’s biggest area of improvement this past season, which really elevated his transitional game.

The Knights forward displayed better power in his push-off, skating depth, and stride extension, which at times gave him more advanced burner speed than seen in his prior two seasons. These fundamental improvements allowed Nicholl a cleaner sense of pace and a higher rate of acceleration every time the young forward took the ice.

These improvements in his speed were also compounded by smarter route creation, better lane driving, and better control over the ice than the young forward had shown before. Edgework and agility also looked cleaner for Nicholl this past season, which gave the Oilers prospect more evident four-way mobility and allowed him to amplify his forechecking and defensive pressure.

At the ground level, Nicholl’s improvements in his skating make his game much more adaptable to the AHL level, and hints of this were evident throughout his 8-game stint with the Condors. This stint demonstrated his improvements in acceleration, depth, and gliding as these elements allowed him to keep pace better.

These mechanical, speed, and fundamental skating improvements allow Nicholl to be both a secondary offensive option and a defensive checker at the professional level. Expect these elements to continue to grow as Nicholl ages up and builds more muscle and poise at the AHL level.

Area’s of improvement

Puck skills

Nicholl knows how to facilitate plays at both the OHL and AHL levels, but he does have issues seeing them through to completion. Part of these issues are due to loose puck control/poor puck protection mechanics, which explains his 4.7 give aways and low 69% deke success rate.

Nicholl’s hand-eye and shot accuracy are often at odds, as his puck receptions are not always the cleanest, leading to more than average whiffs and a low 59% shot accuracy.

Other factors include rushed/panic decisions, which lead to less-than-desirable puck placement, passes into pressure, and unnecessary cycles. Although the Knights’ production did not dip because of this decision-making (and 87% accuracy), more experienced (professional) opponents could take advantage of these predictable habits and force Nicholl’s into turnovers.

Physicality

This was an element of Nicholl’s game that excelled during his draft year, but he is showing warning signs of reduced physical effectiveness. Nicholl still shows undoubted selflessness with his mark of 0.62 shot blocks per game, and a high rate of 15 puck-battle engagements per game, but also displays limited success.

Despite being one of the most experienced players in the OHL, Nicholl’s body leverage and strength produce inconsistent wins (49% success rate on puck battles in the OHL), and an even lower rate during his AHL stint. Although he can often win body positioning, opponents can push right through and knock him off-balance with relative ease, disrupting any puck sequences.

Additionally, the 2024 draftee’s hitting form is more of a run-and-gun style that bounces off of opponents and shows little real impact on larger-framed opponents. His limited effectiveness in more physical areas also helps explain his 51% Corsi rating for an NHL prospect in his DY+2 season in the OHL.

Now, what Nicholl does physically is not bad, but for it to transition to the AHL, he will need to add more grown man strength, and power to his frame while also improving his balance.

These physicality struggles are common for smaller-framed two-way forwards who enter the professional game for the first time, so if Nicholl can adjust and grow in this area, it is a good testament to his possibility of becoming an NHLer.

Nicholl’s next steps

This upcoming season is Nicholl’s first professional season with the Bakersfield Condors. The forward has an extended developmental timeline compared to other prospects, simply because his game needs more maturity and refinement. This is nothing to worry about, as this is common with most seventh-round selections.

Expect Nicholl to start the season in the Condors’ middle-six forward group and work his way up the lineup. The Canadian forward may see usage on either the second unit of Bakersfield’s penalty kill or power play. Fans should not be surprised if the first-year player’s 5v5 minutes are more limited than those of his older teammates.

For Nicholl’s season to be considered a success, expect a moderate 30–40 points in the AHL, and a fairly even plus-minus rating.

Nicholl is still quite a few years out from competing for a consistent NHL roster spot. If Nicholl can develop a clearer physical edge and more consistent puck skills, expect him to be a savvy defensive checker with slight play-facilitating offensive upside in a bottom-six depth role for the Oilers.

NHL ETA: 4 years

Projection: Bottom-six forward with possible top-nine upside