Another scouting year wraps up with this week’s NHL draft.
It has been a grind for Gavin McKenna and the top prospects but also for the scouts tasked with projecting and ranking them.
It was my second full year with The Pro Hockey Group, under the direction and mentorship of Jason Bukala, with a focus on Western Canada and the Western Hockey League.
I filed reports on 91 draft eligibles (including 32 overagers) over the course of this season, and I expect upwards of 10 current and former WHLers will be selected in the first round. That is counting McKenna and Keaton Verhoeff, who we watched dominate the Dub before heading to college for their draft year.
Still, we got to see a few stud defenders develop into Top 10 candidates and a handful of entertaining forwards with exciting upside, including the Ruck twins who wound up leading the WHL in scoring.
The past couple months — since Kelowna’s second-round playoff exit and following the Memorial Cup tournament here, which I covered as a media member for The Canadian Press — have been spent catching up on the rest of this talented and promising class to produce my personal rankings.
It looks like a great year for Sweden, with potential for a few Top 10 picks and a half-dozen first-rounders. It is a down year for Russians but they could be back in a big way for 2027, led by Nazar Privalov as a possible challenger to Landon DuPont for first overall next year.
In terms of nationalities from my Top 224, Canada accounts for 35 per cent with 79 prospects followed by the United States (45), Sweden (27), Russia (24), Czechia (16), Finland (14), Slovakia (9) and Latvia (5). That totals 219, with the remaining five hailing from Norway (2), Lithuania (1), Switzerland (1) and Kazakhstan (1). Moldova, of all places, could also have been represented, but I lumped that monster in with the Russians. Interestingly, Czechia has more goaltenders than skaters (9-7) ranked in my draft range.
From a league standpoint, 70 per cent of my ranked prospects were playing in North America (157 of 224) — 55 WHL, 46 OHL, 24 QMJHL, 22 USHL (8 NTDP) and 10 NCAA, plus a couple U.S. high schoolers.
Positionally, I’ve ranked 132 forwards, 60 defenders (35 LD, 25 RD) and 32 goaltenders — including 53 overagers who were passed over in previous drafts. That is on the high end for both overagers (typically 30-50) and goaltenders (20-25), but I would take the over on those averages this year, particularly between the pipes.
There aren’t any goalies projected for the first round, but it is a deep group and a strong class from the WHL with 10 ranked (4 imports from Czechia and 4 newcomers from the U.S., along with a returning American who was crowned champion in Anders Miller and a lone Canadian in Parker Snell, who I am higher on than most).
As for tiers, which are always important to recognize within rankings, I’ve got McKenna and Ivar Stenberg as 1-2 at the top. This debate has been raging since the World Juniors but McKenna remained my No. 1 — he went wire to wire as my top prospect. I realize that is going against the boss man, with Jason giving the edge to Stenberg down the stretch and sticking with him at No. 1 following an impressive performance at the men’s world championship tournament. Bukala’s final rankings, his Top 100, are available here on Sportsnet.
It feels like there is a consensus forming for the next tier, 3-9, with those seven prospects appearing in almost everyone’s Top 10 now. The names are the same but the order is wide-ranging, which should add suspense for fans tuning into the draft.
I split the next tier, originally 10-22, because 10-15 are competing to crack the Top 10 with 16-22 trying to round out the Top 20. Then 23-43 is a bigger tier of first-round contenders, with the exception of three overagers there.
Beyond that, 44-75 can make cases for the Top 50, 76-103 are viable options for the Top 75, and 104-133 are worthy of consideration for the Top 100. There isn’t a ton of separation from 134-224, or not enough to warrant additional tiers, but those are all prospects I’d be willing to take late-round flyers on.
And for honourable mentions, I have 165 more prospects listed alphabetically for simplicity and to avoid further scrutiny over the order of those also-rans. But with nearly 400 prospects (389 for those counting) on my radar this year, I can’t wait to review the results from another robust scouting season. So, without further ado, I give to you my final rankings — my Top 224 for the 2026 NHL Draft:
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