Red Wings 2025 first-round pick set to play for Memorial Cup title Sunday with Everett Silvertips.
If Detroit Red Wings fans were looking for reasons to feel good about the future, Carter Bear has spent the last several months giving them plenty.
The 19-year-old forward, selected 13th overall by Detroit in the 2025 NHL Draft, is riding one of the most electric runs of any prospect in the country right now. After putting together a dominant regular season with the Everett Silvertips, recording 36 goals and 41 assists for 77 points in just 53 games, Bear has carried that form directly into the postseason without skipping a beat.
He helped guide Everett to the WHL Championship, the first in franchise history, contributing seven goals and 15 assists for 22 points across 18 playoff games. For a young player still finding his footing at the professional level of junior hockey, those are numbers that command attention.
He then took his game to an even bigger stage at the Memorial Cup and delivered his most memorable moment yet. In the semifinal against the Chicoutimi Saguenéens, Bear collected the puck and came in alone on a breakaway before going bar-down on a highlight-reel goal, his third of the tournament, to push Everett ahead 3-1 early in the second period. The Silvertips went on to win convincingly, 6-1, and punched their ticket to Sunday's Memorial Cup final.
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Standing in their way is the Kitchener Rangers, and it is no small obstacle. Kitchener has been nothing short of a juggernaut, having suffered just two losses from the start of their OHL playoff run through the Memorial Cup final, a stretch that ranks among the most dominant in the history of Canadian junior hockey.
The Rangers made that power clear in their previous meeting with Everett, handing the Silvertips a 6-2 defeat that left little room for debate. Everett will need a significantly stronger effort Sunday if they hope to end that remarkable run and claim the title.
In the Memorial Cup, Canadian junior hockey's ultimate prize, there is no bigger game on the calendar. For Bear, it represents the grandest stage his young career has seen, and all signs suggest he is ready for the moment. He has been a central figure in everything Everett has accomplished this season, not just a passenger on a winning team but one of its driving forces.
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