Who should the Vancouver Canucks take at No. 3 in 2026 NHL Draft? Scouts poll

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksPlayoff bracketNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterNHL Draft Caleb Malhotra has dominated the OHL playoffs and is elevating his draft stock. John E. Sokolowski / Getty Images Share article7The NHL’s Draft Lottery ball machine whizzed and whirred on Tuesday night, and once again, let the Vancouver Canucks down. Despite owning the most favourable odds at the 2026 lottery by virtue of their 32nd-place finish, the draw for the No. 1 pick was won by the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the draw for the No. 2 pick was won by the San Jose Sharks. That leaves the Canucks in third. It was statistically their most likely draft slot, and it’s by no means a consolation prize. Yes, the 2026 draft class is headlined by a pair of wingers with star potential, Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg, who have been atop draft rankings for much of this season. Both players will likely have their names called before the Canucks are on the clock in late June. Picking third isn’t some kind of disappointing “loss” for the Canucks, though. There will be a significant group of high-end blue liners available for the Canucks to consider at No. 3, in addition to a top centre with local ties who is rising quickly up draft boards. To give our readers a sense of how NHL teams have been discussing these questions, we granted anonymity to three working NHL amateur scouts — two from Western Conference teams and one from an Eastern Conference team — so that they could freely discuss the top players in the draft class, including the likes of Stenberg, Caleb Malhotra and Keaton Verhoeff. We’ll identify those scouts as Scout 1, Scout 2 and Scout 3 throughout this story. The first thing the Canucks may want to consider is exploring their options to trade down the draft order. “After McKenna and Stenberg, I think this draft class flattens out pretty quickly,” said Scout 2, illustrating a point that all of our evaluators generally expressed while we were conducting this poll. “I don’t think you can fairly argue that there’s a standout, and really it comes down to personal preference.” “I would say all of these kids in the top-10 are very likable as players,” said Scout 3. “There’s nobody you’d have serious reservations about picking, and I’m not sure that’s been the case the past couple of drafts. So it’s not that this class is ‘flat’ in a negative sense, it’s just that the player who is going to be picked at seventh overall or eighth overall is an awesome prospect also, in that you could totally see them going at three. I think the top eight or nine in this class, their teams should be very excited to get them.” The Canucks need talent at every single spot on their roster. So, if McKenna and Stenberg are ultimately picked first and second, respectively, the club could consider picking up an additional asset or two while still netting a prospect of comparable quality to what they will be considering at No. 3 One of the most valuable aspects of the third pick is the possibility that Stenberg could still be available when the Canucks are on the clock. “I don’t think Ivar Stenberg is a clear number two,” said Scout 1. “I don’t think it’s a knock on Stenberg that he’s not a lock at No. 2, it’s just that, yes, Stenberg is super skilled, he’s a smart hockey player and he’s dynamic, but at the end of the day, he’s also a 5-foot-10 winger.” “He’s a winger, and there’s two wingers at the top of the draft, which is odd in and of itself,” said Scout 3. “Once McKenna displayed down the stretch that McKenna could do all the things that he can do, Stenberg would’ve really had to crush it to keep pace. “I think the conversation now is less about McKenna versus Stenberg, and more about whether or not anybody else has played themselves up as high as the No. 2 overall pick in competition with Stenberg.” The notion that Stenberg’s less-than-sterling conclusion to the SHL season may soften his market wasn’t universally shared by our panel. “I think he is probably my favourite among the rest of the prospects in this class to go second,” Scout 2 said. “I think there are arguments to be made for some of the other prospects in this draft class at second overall, but I personally don’t find those arguments to be very compelling.” Still, it’s worth noting that Stenberg’s perch as the clear No. 2 player isn’t quite as rigid or locked in as it seemed back in January. Now there is at least one significant gate crasher who has the opportunity to bump Stenberg down to the third pick. With 26 points in 14 OHL playoff games, Malhotra is coming on in a major way and elevating his draft stock. Malhotra’s ascendance has been a surprise to many scouts who’ve watched him play over the years, but his entry into the conversation to be considered with the third selection (or even, potentially, at No. 2) has become undeniable as Malhotra has laid waste to the OHL in the postseason this spring. “In previous years, when I saw him, I thought he was probably just a clone of his dad,” said Scout 2. “I saw him as a smart, responsible two-way centre. He looks good on draws, he takes care of his own end, there’s probably more playmaking in his game than is showing up on the scoresheet. I expected him to be a really good mid-first-rounder in this class, so I’m caught off guard by how far he’s ascended, what he’s been able to do this year and how much he’s produced.” “Caleb Malhotra’s greatest asset, as good as his hockey sense and his speed and size is, is his character,” said Scout 1. “He’s got elite character. I could see him captaining an NHL team someday, and you’re seeing it, his production in big games has gone to another level. He’s been dynamite in the playoffs, and if there was any question with Caleb, it was would he be the same as his dad and not be able to produce numbers at the NHL level. I don’t think that will be a concern.” “People might point to his regular season results, but his recent production in the playoffs would justify a top-five draft slot easily, and of course, centres get elevated,” said Scout 3. “The trajectory on the player has been pretty dramatic. He was in the BCHL last season, and it’s not that he wasn’t a difference-maker, but he didn’t really dominate. Then he wasn’t invited to the Ivan Hlinka camp, and part of that might’ve been that he went to the BCHL, but when you see him in September in the OHL as a true rookie, and compare him now to what he was then, you see a massive difference. I think that’s exciting. “A recent example of a player who took that sort of leap is Beckett Senneke, about halfway through his draft year, you were just shocked. Senneke played as a 16-year-old in the OHL, and he was super frustrating … Even in his draft year, there were games where he struggled or where he was healthy scratched or benched. Then you saw him from January onward, and he just figured it out. Caleb’s progression is, he starts as a 17-year-old in the OHL and every time you saw him, he just looked bigger and stronger and better.” There are a few stellar defence prospects in this draft class, and evaluating their upside and abilities is going to be a critical task for NHL amateur scouting staffs in the weeks to come. “I think what you do with this class of defenders is take them and say, ‘At their best, if they all pan out and hit their potential, who do you see as having the highest ceiling?’” asked Scout 3 rhetorically. “If you’re picking third overall, you’re picking really high, so instead of going with the highest floor player, I think you sort it by asking yourself, ‘Can you see any of these guys winning a Norris Trophy?’” It’s a complicated question, of course, one that’s complicated further by some of the profiles involved. Verhoeff, for example, was briefly viewed in the fall as a serious contender to be taken with the first selection. Over the course of this season, however, the market for Verhoeff has softened, at least in the public sphere. “It honestly has been harder to evaluate Verhoeff, versus guys like (Daxon) Rudolph and (Carson) Carels, in part because there’s a lot of examples, kids who’ve been playing their age-18 and -19 seasons in the CHL and then turning pro. That’s been happening for decades. “Verhoeff choosing to go to college this season throws us for a loop a little bit. “So I think that’s made for a tough evaluation, because you go into North Dakota and it’s a mixed bag. The only thing you can really do is when you watch Carels at a prospects game or with Prince George, you try and picture how Verhoeff would fare in the same game. Or vice versa, imagining how Carels would do in the same setting.” “I see his hockey sense as a concern,” said Scout 1 in discussing Verhoeff. “I’m not sure he’s going to project as a power-play quarterback, and his five-on-five play sometimes leaves your head spinning because of some of the chances he takes. “I think going to UND was a big step up, and I wonder if it was a mistake. He would’ve been a 75-point guy, probably, if he’d stuck around in Victoria. “When I’ve seen him play the last 12 months, he’s struggled making decisions. I’m just not sure that he processes the game that well, and I think coaches will have to simplify his game in order to play him. NHL coaches, they generally don’t utilize defenders that can’t think. And if they can’t think then you’ve got to simplify their game, and once you do that, you might have a third pair guy that you’ve spent the No. 3 or No. 4 overall pick on.” Scout 2, however, had a much sunnier take on Verhoeff’s game and ability to pay off a top-end draft pick for the team that drafts him. “I lean Verhoeff as the third overall player in this class,” said Scout 2. “You have to look at what he was able to do moving into the NCAA at 17, in a year when that level of competition got a lot higher, and he was a fairly solid performer for most of the season at a major program. I’m a believer in the offensive sense, the playmaking ability and the goal-scoring ability from the back end, and I put a lot of weight on him being able to make that adjustment. “I think some of the issues with Verhoeff’s defensive reads and skating that have caused the market to soften on him are at least, in part, the product of those issues being exposed against 23- and 24-year-old players at a higher level of competition, as opposed to the other defenders in this class who were just absolutely dominating against their peers. “Like you hear people talk about Verhoeff and they say things like ‘He can’t skate’ and against his peers, that’s just not true. I really don’t think the skating is as big an issue as people make it out to be. And yes, he’s going to have some work to do to level up defensively, but I’m a big believer in the offensive package that he offers. And then you add to that the fact that he’s a 6-foot-4, right-handed defenseman and a guy that everybody gives excellent references to in terms of his character and leadership, and you’ve got a player that I think every organization should be very excited to add.” Verhoeff’s size, however, is seen at least somewhat as a double-edged sword by the scouts we polled. There appears to be a general sense that he’s been able to dominate against his age group in part because he’s so much larger and more physically developed than most of his competition. “I think Verhoeff uses his size, because when he goes back for a puck, he’s not wheeling,” noted Scout 3. “He leans into contact and pops the puck out quickly. “Whereas a defender like Carels wants to use his feet and escape on his own, Verhoeff wants to take that contact, then pop the puck into space. Then you’re looking at it and trying to figure out what’s more translatable.” If Verhoeff’s physical tools, height and precocious development path — Verhoeff is just the third 17-year-old defender in NCAA hockey to exceed 20 points in a season across the past 20 years, with the other two being Noah Hanifin and Zach Werenski — set him apart superficially from the other defenders in this class, it’s worth noting that there’s very little consensus once you get past McKenna in this draft class. Chase Reid, for example, has significant fans within the industry who are convinced that he has the offensive upside to be a star-level defender. “I think you’re looking at a 6-foot-2, right-handed defenceman who is going to quarterback a power play at the NHL level, and that’s enough for me,” said Scout 1. “He’s an elite skater with high-end hockey sense, he’s capable of running a power play, great skater. Honestly, I see some similarities in some categories to Zach Werenski. There’s a lot to like.” Meanwhile, Rudolph and Carels have produced points at a clip that we haven’t seen in the WHL from 17-year-old blueliners since Scott Niedermayer was playing major junior hockey in the late 1980s. Given the NIL factor and how many top players departed the CHL for college hockey over the past 12 months, making sense of that sort of eye-popping production is something a lot of talent evaluators in the industry are grappling with significantly in advance of the draft. “Honestly, it’s really tough this year, with all the changes in NIL and the CHL, and how it’s impacted the quality of competition in all three leagues and in the NCAA,” said Scout 2. “It’s a question I don’t think I’ve really finished grappling with.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms