MacDonell finished his OHL career with a 46 game season where he scored 27 goals and added 27 assists along with 76 penalty minutes. The gritty centre has always had a balanced offering of goals and assists with plenty of penalty minutes to boot.

MacDonell signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Dallas Stars.

The Dallas Stars drafted MacDonell in the sixth round (189th overall) in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.

July 2026. MacDonell turned pro and spent his rookie season in Idaho, finishing with 22 points in 43 ECHL games. The counting numbers undersell the year. He posted a plus-10 that led the Steelheads for long stretches, sitting tied for eighth among all ECHL skaters at the calendar turn, and his goals came from the hard areas, redirects along the ice and net-front finishes. The flashes were real too, including a behind-the-back setup against Wichita in December that turned directly into a goal. He attended Dallas development camp in Frisco this week. The profile is unchanged: undersized at 5-10 but playing bigger, physical to the point of penalty trouble, with enough touch to finish plays he creates through pressure. The fantasy relevance stays modest until the production climbs a level. The next step is literal: whether he forces his way onto the Texas roster out of September camp or returns to Boise as the Steelheads’ matchup center.

At 5-10 and 185 pounds, he will have to adapt his game against bigger and more mature competition, and his transition to the Texas Stars in the fall will give us insight on how translatable his game will be to the professional ranks.

MacDonnell can earn his way into the bottom six with the big club where he projects to be a pesty forechecker who can chip in with complimentary offense. If your leagues are deep enough, he could be worth stashing for depth as a cheap multi-cat centreman in dynasty if his AHL career starts of strongly.