Comments / New

Golden Knights Top 25 Under 25: Layton Ahac is our honorable mention

Knights On Ice’s 2020-21 preseason Golden Knights Top 25 Under 25 series ranks the top 25 players under the age of 25 currently in Vegas’ system. The KOI staff created their own Top 25 Under 25 ballots. Each individual writer’s ballot was then used to generate a composite score that forms the final ballot.

We are back again with this year’s version of our Top 25 Under 25, highlighting the top young players in the Vegas Golden Knights organization. Today, we start with 2019 third-round pick Layton Ahac, who’s becoming a solid stay-at-home defenseman.

Layton Ahac

  • Position: Defenseman
  • Age: 19
  • Currently playing: Ohio State, sophomore
  • Nationality: Canadian/

There’s some intrigue surrounding Ahac. He’s not an offensive defenseman that will jump off the page like other names on our countdown, but he’s shown some flashes that make you wonder if there’s untapped potential.

For example, I don’t care if it’s college hockey. You make a pass like this to lead to a tying goal, there’s something there.

And then he shows this kind of play, jumping into the offense and executing a picture-perfect cross-crease pass for a goal.

Before making the jump to play at Ohio State, Ahac was a heavy assist man for the Prince George Spruce Kings of the British Columbia Hockey League. Ahac had 61 points in 110 regular season games but was a factor in Prince George’s run to the 2019 BCHL title, averaging a point per game (five goals, 12 assists) in 17 postseason games.

That kind of play is why Ahac was able to rise up draft boards and why Vegas felt compelled to take a guy that comes off as a stay-at-home defenseman, to showing this kind of offensive potential.

Ahac scored his first collegiate goal on Dec. 18 with a shot from the point. The release on this shot is unique. It doesn’t look like he gets all of it at the point of the wind-up, but it’s effective enough to beat the Arizona State goalie.

Right now, it’s just a matter of needing to see more from Ahac before ranking him higher on the list. There’s no doubt he can do that, and continued success at Ohio State and future development camps can only increase that optimism.