Inside JP Hurlbert’s rise from Texas to the WHL and top of 2026 NHL Draft

JP Hurlbert skates with the puck in a game for the Kamloops Blazers.

JP Hurlbert had 97 points in 68 games this season for the Kamloops Blazers. Brian Johnson / WHL

By Scott WheelerJune 24, 2026 6:00 am EDT Updated

The Kamloops Blazers’ calculus with their first-round pick in the 2023 WHL US Prospect Draft was this: “I’m not sure if it makes sense to pick somebody that we project to be a third-line guy when (JP) Hurlbert is sitting there.”

That’s the way head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston remembers then-Blazers head scout Robbie Sandland (now an amateur scout with the Pittsburgh Penguins) putting it to him.

Hurlbert, it was widely known, “was a long shot” — a star with the Dallas Stars Elite U14 AAA team who’d just registered 112 goals and 195 points in 75 games and was bound for the Youth Olympics and then, surely, the U.S. NTDP.

But it was the 20th pick in the draft, and so Clouston and Sandland played the risk-reward, knowing they liked the player and having had at least some conversations with his representatives at CAA.

Over the next couple of years, they tried twice to get him into camp. The family, “always really good” about it, got back to them each time with some version of “Thanks for the invitation, but school is starting.”

Then one day, something changed. It was just before the midway point of his U17 season at the program, and Clouston got word from another CAA client and Blazers forward, Nathan Behm, that things may not have been going quite as well for Hurlbert as they’d hoped. From that point on, the Blazers kept in close contact with Hurlbert’s reps, and when his season ended, they reached back out.

A few months later, he finally accepted one of those invites to camp, leaving the national program to play his draft year in Kamloops.

He wasn’t the first to make the decision — fellow University of Michigan commit William Horcoff had left the program that Christmas and seen his draft stock improve in the second half, and longtime friend and former Spring Creek Academy classmate Cullen Potter had also left for Arizona State — but his wasn’t to accelerate into college. Instead, he took the now-available CHL option.

A season later, that decision has paid dividends.

He scored a hat trick in his WHL debut. He was named an alternate captain for the Blazers and Team CHL against his old teammates from the NTDP in the CHL USA Prospects Challenge. When that series rolled around at the end of November, he sat atop the WHL in scoring with 44 points in 25 games. He finished the year fourth in league scoring with 42 goals and 97 points in 68 games. As the Blazers’ go-to guy from the start, he commonly put 7-9 pucks on net in games and finished second in the WHL with 294 shots on goal.

After entering his draft year viewed as a potential second-round pick, the 6-foot, 190-pound forward (he’s listed as a left winger but started the year as a center and took 361 draws for the Blazers) finished it as NHL Central Scouting’s 12th-ranked North American skater.

Hurlbert routinely had 7-9 shots on goal per game for Kamloops. (Brian Johnson / WHL)

Hurlbert said he made the decision to leave the program for Kamloops for the “opportunity” that came with it, and called the opening-up of the CHL path for college-bound players “a great thing for hockey, honestly.”

“The CHL is such a great league, and the NCAA is right there with it. Now it’s the best of both worlds,” he said.

Clouston and his staff also instilled confidence in him right away, he said. But Clouston gives all of the credit for Hurlbert’s breakout season to him. Even the “A,” Clouston insisted, came from his peers. After meeting every Monday throughout camp with his returning leaders to ask them, “Who else do we need to have in this group?” they all kept coming back with Hurlbert’s name.

“Right from Day 1, he was energy, enthusiasm, high level of compete, all of the things that are really important with leadership. He showed up, and he was all in. It was about the team, and he wanted to make this a great year on and off the ice,” Clouston said.

He knew they made the right decision when he showed up to clean his desk on one early-season Sunday morning, and when he heard some noise from his office and stepped out, he saw half a dozen players coming in for an extra workout before some golf, both organized by Hurlbert.

It was also Hurlbert who got the team playing cards at the back of the bus for the first time in years.

“He’s just an outgoing personality, he’s got some charisma,” Clouston said. “Obviously a talented hockey player, but just really, really impressive from a personal human standpoint.”

On the ice, Clouston learned quickly that Hurlbert was a “really good all-around player.” But it’s his offensive instincts that really stood out.

“He can skate, he can stickhandle, he’s got a knack in and around the net, but it’s his anticipation. He just anticipates plays and gets after it. Maybe it’s an exit out of the zone or something off of the cycle, he just really anticipates offense at a really high level,” Clouston said.

When scouts started calling, they’d often ask about his skating, but even that Clouston thinks is “pretty good” and certainly not a major flaw.

Hurlbert’s summer will be spent at home in Allen, Texas. He was born and raised there, right in between the Credit Union of Texas Event Center and nearby Frisco’s Comerica Center (the Dallas Stars’ practice facility). He skates with a group run by former longtime NHLer Vernon Fiddler with his son Blake (a Kraken prospect) and other pros like Cross Hanas, and trains with local strength coaches Jovon McLaughlin and Nate Henry.

“For it being a quote-unquote non-traditional hockey market, they do a great job training and developing,” he said of hockey’s growth in Texas.

He started skating at 2 with his dad, Jeff, a Red Wings fan who is originally from Detroit and now owns four car washes in the Dallas area. Jeff was also an athlete himself, playing quarterback in high school. His younger sister Caroline is a top lacrosse player in the Dallas area, and his mom, Sarah, travels extensively for her work as a senior vice president at The Coca-Cola Company.

He’ll leave Dallas in the middle of August to make his way to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he’ll be a freshman with the Wolverines next season.

He’s following his dad, a Michigan alum, there, but he was drawn to head coach Brandon Naurato.

“We really connected on how we see and think the game. He’s very offensive-minded, and so am I, and so we just over phone calls have been able to talk over plays and things that have worked for them. It’s a really unique relationship that I think we’ll have,” Hurlbert said.

Naurato was drawn to Hurlbert first because he’s a rink rat and student of the game, but he also remembers connecting on the offensive side of the game in conversations pre-NTDP in Dallas.

“He’s just high-end offense, man. (He) thinks differently,” Naurato told The Athletic on a recent call. “He obviously proved this year that he can score and put the puck in the net. What I’ve been most impressed with watching him through video is it’s not just soft skill. There’s hard skill, he had a fight or two, he takes pride in his play away from the puck.”

Hurlbert plays in the CHL USA Prospects Challenge. (Jenn Pierce / CHL)

Next season, Naurato and his staff hope to put him in a position to “do really well” right away as a freshman.

“It’s about finding what’s holding him back from jumping into an NHL lineup, which is extremely difficult to do. And it’s not just ice time. You can play 20 minutes a game, but if it’s not on the PK or defensive responsibilities to get those needed winning habits for pro, then there’s gaps,” Naurato said.

And that, for Hurlbert, is what it’s all about.

“My dream and goal is to play in the NHL, and I’ll do everything I can to make that dream become a reality. Michigan’s the next stop for me to get there,” he said.

He thinks the decision he made to spend a year in Kamloops has prepared him for that next step.

“Kamloops did so much for me. I learned so much on the ice and off the ice. Kamloops is my second home now. Being a part of something that tight is special,” he said. “The Western League was a lot of fun. It’s a very fast style of hockey, very competitive (and) each night you’re going against a guy who is really high on draft rankings or a guy who is already drafted. The USHL was a very heavy and structured league. I’m an offensive-minded player. I like to shoot the puck and deceive goalies and defensemen. I’m not afraid to make plays and play with confidence. I create time and space and feel like my role is to create offense, whether it be on the power play or five-on-five.”

At Michigan and beyond into the NHL, Clouston, Blazers staff and Hurlbert’s Kamloops teammates will be cheering him on.

“I think he really enjoyed the team element and the program’s a different environment, it’s kind of an all-star team. I think he really embraced ‘Hey, we’re the Kamloops Blazers, and I’m part of this team and this community, and I’m going to start fresh.’ So I think there’s probably a different feel from the program to just an everyday regular WHL, OHL or QMJHL team. You’ve got lots of different age groups, and you’ve kind of got different pecking orders, and it’s just a different situation,” Clouston said. “(He) was terrific.”

— With reporting in Buffalo, N.Y., and Calgary and Lethbridge, Alberta

The Athletic and FloHockey have partnered to bring fans a live 2026 NHL Draft show. Hosted by Max Bultman and featuring experts Corey Pronman, Scott Wheeler and Chris Peters, The Athletic x FloHockey NHL Draft Live will livestream during the entire first round. Tune in June 26 at 7 p.m. ET on The Athletic Hockey Show’s YouTube channel, across FloHockey’s platforms, and on Amazon Prime (U.S.) and Fubo (Canada).