The first NHL Draft for any incoming hockey operations regime is always extremely high stakes. When that draft is also the first of a nascent rebuild, and the franchise holds a top-three selection, an additional first-round pick from the trade of a franchise player and four picks in the top 50, well then it’s something else entirely.
Whichever players the Canucks pick when the 2026 NHL Draft unfolds in late June, their development and the path they take in professional hockey will define the initial phases of this rebuild.
The results of this draft will mold perceptions of new co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and recently promoted general manager Ryan Johnson. It will shape the look and feel of this team for years to come.
If Vancouver can emerge from the 2026 draft with a couple of building block prospects in hand, the sort of young players that hit a rocket ship trajectory in their draft-plus-one seasons, produce and trend rapidly in the direction of becoming difference-makers, it would do wonders for this franchise’s ability to sell short-term hope during an upcoming several seasons that promise to be very lean from a results perspective.
If, however, the Canucks struggle to identify those players with star potential in the draft class, then Vancouver fans will soon know that they’re in for a longer ride than what fans in, for example, Montreal have enjoyed tracking over the past few seasons.
As we continue to dive deep into the draft, and with the NHL combine kicking off this week in Buffalo, N.Y., we’ll conduct our second Canucks Mock Draft of the cycle. This time, we’re using Will Scouch’s mock draft simulator over at scouching.com to simulate the picks made by non-Canucks teams, and Vancouver’s picks will be made by The Athletic’s senior NHL prospects reporter Corey Pronman. Pronman has been asked to make the picks based on what he believes the club would do, but will share his insights into what he’d like to see the team do as we go through this exercise.
PickPositionPlayer
1
LW
Gavin McKenna
2
LW/RW
Ivar Stenberg
3
C
Caleb Malhotra
Thomas Drance: So, as expected, it’s Gavin McKenna first, and it’s Ivar Stenberg second, and now the Canucks are on the clock with neither of the elite wingers remaining on the board.
Corey Pronman: That takes the whole premium position versus winger debate out of the conversation. Even if Stenberg is still on the board, that’s still the most important conversation that Vancouver is going to be having this summer: can you find a player like Stenberg on the open market, or is it easier to find a really good top-six centre or a really high-end top-four calibre defender more easily on the open market?
This is especially loud when it comes to centres. I know there’s been a prolific debate about Caleb Malhotra in Vancouver, who’s the clear top centre in this class, but it’s not just happening in Vancouver. In a lot of front offices, there’s a lot of discussion about a player who has a chance to be a real top-line centre. Even if it’s not the likeliest outcome, he has a real chance to be a first-line centre, and that’s the most valuable role arguably on any NHL team. It’s so difficult to get those players.
Drance: I’m curious to get your thoughts on this, Corey, because I get a little bit worried about teams drafting for positional need. Obviously, it’s important in team building, but I suspect teams have it wrong when they think about building out their NHL team at the draft, as opposed to just building organizational value.
Let me give you an example from last year’s draft. So, it’s hard to find a first-line centre, we all know this, but say Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews were to shake loose at some point in the next 24 months. These are the true, top, best in the league first-line pivots, and the idea that one of those players could change teams over the next few years isn’t exactly viewed as an impossible scenario around the league at the moment.
OK, so the Utah Mammoth call and offer either Toronto or Edmonton a package based around last year’s fourth pick, Caleb Desnoyers, a centre that Utah picked because it had to draft a centre, there’s no other way to land them. The Nashville Predators call and offer a package based around last year’s fifth pick, Brady Martin, a centre Nashville picked because it had to draft a centre, there’s no other way to land them. And the Philadelphia Flyers call and offer a package based around last year’s sixth pick, Porter Martone, a winger who has already eclipsed the centres drafted ahead of him because he’s just a really good player.
Which offer is Edmonton or Toronto most likely to be interested in? Because we’re just a year out from the 2025 draft, and it’s probably the package with the winger in it!
Pronman: I think the key here is you don’t want to be so absolute. You can never say “It’s impossible to get a top two-line centre” because that’s just obviously not true. It’s about relative difficulty.
You have to focus less on these rules and more on evaluating the actual player, because you never want to take Jesperi Kotkaniemi when Brady Tkachuk is on the board.
I think in this situation, though, what’s different is that when you look at Malhotra and compare him with the top defenders and even when you compare him with the top wingers, I don’t think there’s a big difference in the quality of the prospects. There’s a difference, but it’s not a giant difference.
This is why he’s being considered in this range. What a lot of evaluators see, and I agree, is that he’s close enough to the top wingers or the top defenders in this class, that the path exists where a couple of years from now he can pass some of these guys.
Personally, I have Malhotra sixth on my board right now, and I wouldn’t take him ahead of some of the other top prospects in this class. I can see, however, and think it’s reasonable why and how a team could arrive at this conclusion.
As for actually making this pick, with McKenna and Stenberg off the board, you can sort of cross out the idea of Vancouver considering a winger third. The next best wingers are way down the board this high in the class.
If you look at the defencemen, you’re talking about Chase Reid, Keaton Verhoeff, Alberts Šmits or Carson Carels. Or you’re talking about Malhotra here.
My gut is that the pick will be Malhotra in this scenario. I would prefer one of the defencemen, especially because I think Verhoeff, Reid and Šmits have just as much offensive upside and are more naturally athletic. To me, their projections are a little bit more promising.
The Malhotra debate really comes down to how much offence you think he has. There are evaluators in the industry who believe that what he did at the end of the year is the tip of the iceberg and that it’s going to continue to develop. That he’s going to become a premier scorer to go with the great defensive play and tools, but if you look at the body of work, and you’re a little bit more concerned based on his track record, how deep his team was, then I think that’s where the stress points come in.
So let’s make the predictable pick here and take the centre. I do want to note, though, that I personally would be taking the defenceman.
PickPositionPlayer
20
LHD
William Håkansson
21
RHD
Ryan Lin
22
LW
Wyatt Cullen
23
RHD
Juho Piiparinen
24
C
Alex Command
Drance: OK, so Markus Ruck has gone before Liam Ruck.
Pronman: I don’t think that’s happening. Not to say that it couldn’t, but I’d be very surprised. People around the league do really like the Rucks, though.
Honestly, given how this mock has unfolded, I think the best player available is a centre, but we already picked one for the Canucks.
Drance: I wouldn’t let that influence you. We can keep hammering them. I’m sure the Canucks wouldn’t be upset at all to start their draft out by drafting a bunch of centres if they can.
Pronman: Yeah, and I think with the way this board has unfolded, Alexander Command is the clear best player available at this spot. I think he’s a really enticing prospect, and I don’t think Xavier Villeneuve is likely to be selected this high. Not to say that it can’t happen, but I don’t really think this is the range for him.
Gleb Pugachyov is a name that’s worth mentioning. A lot of the names we’re looking at here, like Egor Shilov and Brooks Rogowski, are more early Day 2 type prospects. There’s more leaguewide interest in a player like Pugachyov late in the first round, even if he’s not often mocked here. I will say, though, I don’t get the sense that the Canucks are that into the Russian prospects.
I think Command is the pick here. The only prospect you have now is that you had two first-round bullets, and you didn’t really draft a lot of skill. Malhotra is a power-play guy, but I don’t think Command is. So I guess that’s the balance there.
The value is really good here, even if Command’s most likely to be a third-line centre in the NHL, I like the idea of Vancouver coming away from this first round with two of the top-four centres in the draft. And I’ll be surprised if Command is available in the 20s, so if the board unfolds like this and Vancouver finds that it has too many centres down the line, that’s a good problem to have.
PickPositionPlayer
29
RHD
Adam Goljer
30
LW
Jaxon Cover
31
RW
JP Hurlbert
32
LHD
Nikita Shcherbakov
33
RHD
Tommy Bleyl
Pronman: All right, now the board is getting really interesting.
Villeneuve is still on the board, and he’ll be hotly debated around the league. I think the consensus would say Maddox Dagenais is the pick here, but the Canucks have already taken two centres, and I’m not even sure whether he’s a full-time centre. There’s also not a lot of high-end traits there, outside of the size.
My lean would probably be Villeneuve, Pugachyov or Tommy Bleyl, especially if Vancouver is looking at another potential future power-play quarterback type for the post-Quinn Hughes era. I think Bleyl is thought of slightly more highly than Villenueve is by the league now, and he had just a fantastic season.
To me, Bleyl is a slightly less skilled version of Villeneuve, but he’s bigger and a better defender. He’s also right-handed and has plenty of offence. He has power-play quarterback potential at the next level, and even if he’s not quite as electric as Villeneuve, there are fewer deficiencies. I think there’s a real chance he goes late first.
PickPositionPlayer
37
LHD
Ben MacBeath
38
C
Adam Andersson
39
RHD
Brek Liske
40
RW/LW
Niklas Aaram-Olsen
41
RW
Gleb Pugachyov
Pronman: Oh, I like that, I like Adam Andersson going that high there to Seattle. I definitely think that’s possible.
Drance: So, Corey, Villeneuve has fallen to us again here.
Pronman: Yes, but we already drafted another defenceman with that profile. I don’t think the Canucks love taking Russian-born players, but at this spot, I think they’d have to take Pugachyov.
He’s a top-20 talent all day in this draft class. I don’t think it’s going to go down like this, but if it did, this is your fourth pick now; your other three picks have all filled needs at premium positions, and Pugachyov is just such a talented prospect.
I mean, I think he’s every bit as good as Oscar Hemming in this class. In fact, I think they’re very similar types of wingers, too. It’s just that he plays in Russia.
Drance: Are there any contractual complications there?
Pronman: He has two years left on his deal, so that’s the same as it is for most high-level Russian players. He’s your second pick in the second round, though, so that’s standard. I legitimately think the Canucks would do this; it’s just too much value to leave on the board at this stage of the draft.
I still expect him to go mid-to-late first, because some teams have more stomach for this type of pick than Vancouver does, but if you have an opportunity to get a future top-six power forward at this point in the draft, you just have to roll the dice on that.
