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Malcolm Spence is having a blast — and working toward a likely NHL future — at the University of Michigan. Daryl Marshke / Michigan Photography
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Practice had ended, but Malcolm Spence and his University of Michigan teammates were more than content to hang out on the Yost Arena ice. After kneeling near center ice and chatting with his teammates, Spence got to his feet, picked up a puck and skated toward goalie Jack Ivankovic, his roommate positioned in net and ready for a shootout attempt.
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With teammates and coaches watching, Spence approached the crease. The freshman deked Ivankovic, showing off the skill that has helped make him one of the New York Rangers’ top prospects and giving himself a narrow window to shoot. He forehanded a puck over his friend’s arm, but the shot hit the right post. An exasperated Spence jokingly tossed his stick up the ice as he skated away, the clang of wood hitting ice echoing through the empty arena.
The exchange was indicative of how Spence approached practice that day. He was lively and engaged, pretending to cross-check an imaginary defender in a five-on-zero offensive-zone drill and later shouting in frustration when he couldn’t capitalize on a four-on-four scoring chance. Wolverines coach Brandon Naurato loves Spence’s energy; during one lull between drills, Spence and forward Will Horcoff, a top Pittsburgh Penguins prospect, sprinted around the ice and appeared to practice celebrating.
“These are my friends,” Spence said shortly after practice, showered and wearing a Michigan hoodie. “I’m going to enjoy being on the ice. I want to smile when I’m on the ice. I want to have fun.”
Someday, the 19-year-old hopes hockey will be his profession. With the Rangers drafting him No. 43 (second round) in the 2025 draft, he has a good opportunity to make that happen in the coming years. For now, though, Spence tries to remember the opportunity he has in front of him. He’s enjoying college hockey while adjusting to what he describes as a more structured style of play than he experienced in the Ontario Hockey League.
The transition has gone well. Michigan, No. 2 in the NCAA men’s hockey rankings, is 10-2-0, and Spence has four goals and eight points while playing on both special teams units.
“The sky’s the limit, man,” Naurato told his young forward during a recent video session.
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The fourth-year Wolverines coach is enthusiastic about both the player Spence is now and the one he will become.
“I’m happy with (his start), but my job is not to just recruit good players and let them play,” Naurato says. “It’s to recruit good players and make them better. And that’s what I’m excited about.”
Fortuitous timing allowed Spence, who is from the Toronto area, to play the sport at the major junior and NCAA levels. He’s making the most of his developmental opportunities, and that’s good news for a Rangers organization lacking many high-ceiling prospects after Gabe Perreault. If Spence hits, he could be a middle-six wing at the NHL level, or perhaps even top six.
“With his athleticism and his speed, he can be a beast,” Naurato says. “And he will be.”
Players sliding further than expected is an annual tradition at the NHL Draft. In June, surrounded by his parents, two sisters and other loved ones in Los Angeles, Spence had to experience what it was like.
Going into the draft, The Athletic prospect experts Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman projected Spence to be selected in the first round, as the No. 25 and No. 30 pick, respectively. Wheeler noted Spence’s ability to “play with anyone” in a lineup, and Pronman compared him to two-time Stanley Cup winner Ivan Barbashev.
But the first round came and went, and nobody drafted Spence. His slide came as a surprise to those who know him, from Naurato to Ken Peroff, his junior coach with OHL Erie, to No. 2 pick Michael Misa, one of his youth teammates and close friends. Spence went straight back to his hotel that night, team-less and dejected.
“It felt like the world was ending,” he says now.
Over the course of the evening, friends called and texted him, reminding him about the next day’s opportunities in rounds 2-7. His mom, Stacey Spence, told him that his drive and determination would ultimately define him. No, he wouldn’t have the shine of being a first-round pick, but that couldn’t erase everything he’d put into his sport.
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Spence always took hockey seriously growing up, but that reached another level in 2018, when he joined the Mississauga Senators, a top minor hockey team near Toronto. The club had a loaded roster that included Misa, Bruins prospect William Moore and Canucks prospect Riley Patterson, and Spence’s presence reflected his ability within the sport and his commitment to it. His impact was immediate.
“I remember doing battle drills in practice, and a lot of our returning players — who were good players — didn’t want to go against him,” Mississauga coach Chris Stevenson said.
When he moved on to junior, Spence played with Matthew Schaefer, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, and fellow Rangers prospect Carey Terrance, his frequent dinner buddy at Five Guys, Blaze Pizza and Jersey Mike’s. The Erie Otters were dreadful in his first year, going 21-40-7, an adjustment for Spence, who was normally on strong teams growing up. He takes pride in how he helped Erie re-find success: The Otters made the playoffs in his final two seasons in Erie, and in his final season there, Spence helped them to a first-round win against Misa and the Saginaw Spirit.
“I thought he was their best player (that series),” remembers Misa, now a forward for the San Jose Sharks. “Every time he was on the ice, he was dangerous.”
Away from hockey, Spence — whose dad, Michael, is Jamaican — is involved with Hockey Equality, an organization that works for racial equity and inclusion in Canada and supports youth players who face financial barriers. Spence has spoken to kids at camps and promotes the organization on his Instagram. His involvement is important, he says, because of how much Black players such as Quinton Byfield and Akil Thomas inspired him growing up.
At the NHL combine, Spence impressed the teams that interviewed him, including the Rangers. After speaking with the forward, Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury texted Joe Resnick, Spence’s agent, and called him an “impressive young man.”
The night before the draft’s second round, after watching her son go undrafted for 32 picks, Stacey found her mind drifting to the Rangers. The thought of Spence playing in New York, where his sister Camille lives, excited her.
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“That would be amazing,” Stacey thought to herself.
The next morning, the Spences were back at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Resnick had mentioned the Rangers to Spence as a potential good fit, and Spence, wearing a light blue suit, caught his agent’s eye when New York went on the clock for pick No. 43.
Three seats away, Camille leaned toward her mother. “He’s going to be a Ranger,” she said.
Sure enough, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly announced Spence’s name. His slide — which Stacey believes will only fuel him further — was over. He hugged his family, then walked onto the draft floor, where he put on a Rangers jersey for the first time.
“I think a lot of people think he was one of the steals of the draft,” Misa says. “And I’d agree with them 100 percent.”
In the dwindling seconds of a top-10 matchup with Wisconsin, Spence and Wolverines teammate Michael Hage found themselves in the penalty box. Instead of sitting quietly and waiting for the game to end, the two underclassmen started jawing with Wisconsin senior Simon Tassy, who was in the adjacent box for a matching roughing minor.
“How old!?” Spence chirped at Tassy as Hage called his opponent a 26-year-old. (He’s actually 24.) When Tassy said something back, Spence widened his eyes and nodded. “Oh yeah!” he said, before pointing and laughing. The referee banged on the glass in an attempt to quiet the penalized Wolverines, and the timekeeper yelled at them to sit down. Eventually, they did, each letting out a jovial “woo-hoo!”
“(He brings) just another whole element of swagger,” Naurato said the day before that game. “He’s strategic, almost like a (Brad) Marchand about how he goes about it. He’s not just talking to talk. Some guys he won’t talk to, other guys he will. But he knows why. He’s an agitator.”
Stevenson, Spence’s coach in Mississauga, was in Ann Arbor, Mich., for the game. He described the penalty-box interaction as Spence in a nutshell: He’s more than happy to be diplomatic off the ice, but during a game, with the adrenaline flowing, he wants to do anything possible to destroy an opponent.
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“That whole NCAA college atmosphere with the fans and the crowds, I just think it suits who he is,” Stevenson says. “I just think the bigger the stage, the more you’re going to get out of that kid.”
Naurato started recruiting Spence when the prospect was deciding whether to go to the OHL. Spence loved the idea of Michigan — NHL players Owen Power, Matty Beniers and Kent Johnson played there at the time — but was worried about his development in the two seasons before he could join the Wolverines. He went the OHL route, which, at the time, seemed to eliminate the possibility of a college hockey career. Historically, major junior players weren’t allowed to join NCAA teams. That changed in November 2024, when the NCAA Division I Council voted to make Canadian Hockey League players eligible for Division I hockey.
Michigan re-entered the picture, and this time, Naurato got his guy. Spence is one of the first players in the new CHL-to-NCAA pipeline.
In a discussion about Spence, Naurato — unprompted — brought up Canada’s World Junior Championship roster, for which Spence is on the bubble. The winger has experience playing for Canada, scoring the golden goal at the 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and Naurato knows Spence has a goal to play at World Juniors.
“I’ll give a little plug, and it’s no bull—-,” Naurato says. “He’s a winning hockey player, and I think it’s contagious. … If you’re in a hockey fight or a tough game, the more of those guys we have, the bigger I feel.”
Spence wears No. 27 at Michigan, an homage to his late grandfather, Ronald Carrigan, who wore the number as a player at Colgate University in the 1970s. Naurato views Spence as a leader off the ice: When his roommate Henry Mews suffered a season-ending injury early in a game against Notre Dame, Spence was one of the locker-room voices telling teammates at intermission that they needed to win for Mews, the coach remembers. The Wolverines came back that night from a third-period deficit and won in overtime.
Spence says he isn’t in any rush to leave Michigan, and Wheeler thinks he’ll need another full season or two in college before he’s ready to jump to the pros. There are still plenty of ways for him to grow, including in his physical frame, which Michigan lists at 6-foot-1 and 192 pounds. Naurato expects the Wolverines’ spring and summer training will help him get stronger.
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“I’m saying he’s a beast now,” he said. “Imagine when he puts on 12 pounds of muscle.”
The coach also wants Spence to become more consistent working away from the puck. That can be a challenge for young players used to controlling games at lower levels. In college hockey, that becomes more difficult. Fortunately, Naurato says, Spence is receptive to feedback, which the coach believes is a recipe for improvement.
“The first half of the year, (the freshmen) are figuring it out,” Naurato says. “He’s done a really good job early. What is he going to be in the second half? That should be fun to watch.”
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Peter Baugh is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in New York. He has previously been published in the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Politico and the Washington Post. A St. Louis native, Peter graduated from the University of Missouri and previously covered the Missouri Tigers and the Colorado Avalanche for The Athletic. Follow Peter on Twitter @Peter_Baugh
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