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Breaking down the Canucks’ prospect pool post-2026 NHL Draft
Photo credit: © Tav Morisson-CanucksArmy
By Jacob Fraser
Jul 3, 2026, 13:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 3, 2026, 00:53 EDT
The Vancouver Canucks made nine selections last week in the 2026 NHL Draft. Seven of those picks were used to bolster their forward group, adding one defenceman and goaltender as well.
Coming into this year’s draft, the biggest need in the Canucks prospect pool was the centre position. Though they used their first-round pick in 2025 to select Braeden Cootes, the team lacked young centremen in their NHL lineup as well as higher-end quality prospects outside of the Sherwood Park, Alberta native.
To begin, let’s recount the Canucks nine selections in this year’s draft.
1st Round, 3rd overall: Caleb Malhotra, C1st Round, 24th overall: Adam Novotný, LW2nd Round, 33rd overall: Brooks Rogowski, C2nd Round, 41st overall: Niklas Aaram-Olsen, LW3rd Round, 78th overall: Dmitri Ivchenko, G4th Round, 97th overall: Yaroslav Bryzgalov, LW5th Round, 129th overall: Connor Davis, RW6th Round, 176th overall: Lucian Bernat, RW6th Round, 184th overall: Samuel Eriksson, LD
Before we get into the prospects, we’ll set some ground rules for the names included. There are no full-time NHLers on these lists, and no one over the age of 21 except goaltenders. This means you won’t see guys like Zeev Buium, Tom Willander, Elias Pettersson, etc.
Now that we’ve set the rules and jogged our memory of each Canucks selection in 2026, let’s take a look at where the newest members of the Canucks organization slot into the pipeline, and break down the Canucks prospect pool by position.
Centremen
Starting with the centre position, this has been a focus for the Canucks: building organizational depth down the middle of the ice and bringing in blue-chip prospects in hopes of rebuilding the superstar depth this team had just a few seasons ago.
Having Caleb Malhotra, Braeden Cootes and Brooks Rogowski as the team’s top centre-ice prospects is a very solid start.
You may not believe in Malhotra becoming an elite-level first-line centre, or in Cootes being a high-end second-line centre. That being said, with what the floor looks like at this point for these two players, having them as the centre duo in your middle-six seems like an excellent starting block in the first year of the rebuild.
Adding to this potentially elite middle-six duo is Rogowski; the big man from Michigan might not have the ceiling of a Tage Thompson, but seems to be a pretty good bet to eventually play NHL games one day and could potentially be a very good bottom-six centreman.
In year one of the rebuild and through two drafts, if you were told you’d be able to shore up the centre ice position on the second, third and fourth lines, fans would be thrilled with that.
Though it’s yet to be seen and anything can happen, the top end of the Canucks centremen prospects seem to be in a really good spot.
The other names on this list are more than likely organizational depth, but we’ve already seen Ty Mueller get NHL looks in two separate seasons, and Riley Patterson seems to be gearing up for a big AHL role next season as a 20-year-old.
Are they going to just be solid depth for the future? Probably. But there certainly could be a lot more from both of these players, potentially being NHL regulars down the line.
Kieren Dervin was selected higher than both Patterson and Mueller, but hasn’t quite shown the same potential as those two. He’s had one less year to develop, so maybe, like Patterson, we’ll be saying something different next year. At the moment, however, we’ll just have to see what he can do as he heads to the University of Michigan next season.
Overall, the centre depth in the Canucks prospect pool is in a very good place. There’s some upside but also some virtually guaranteed NHL players as well. This is a much different look than they had just two years ago, and it’s exciting to see what may be to come from each of these players.
Wingers
Now let’s jump over to the wing. The Canucks have done a ton of work in recent drafts to address the wing positions. This year, they added Adam Novotný and Niklas Aaram-Olsen early on in the draft, while also taking some swings on guys with NHL traits in the later rounds.
We’ve seen the Liam Öhgren comparables, but this kid could be even better than that. In saying all that, he doesn’t project to be a future superstar as of now; he likely projects as a middle-six winger, but at this point we’d put our money on him being a second-line guy for the future, and a good one.
Then there’s Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who was the Canucks most exciting prospect, but now there’s some concern there. He’s slight, he’s had injury problems, and the footspeed isn’t quite there yet. Despite all that, he’s still a very good prospect in the Canucks organization and one of the few with legitimate top-six upside. This season is going to be a big one for Lekkerimäki. There isn’t a ton of space for wingers on the Canucks roster at the moment, but with Ryan Johnson and Manny Malhotra now calling the shots for the big club, the former 2022 first-round pick should have a very good chance at earning a shot with the big club with an extended leash for him to develop.
Niklas Aaram-Olsen is the next name on the list and a very intriguing one at that. He’s been a very good goal scorer at the junior level in Sweden and has fairly high upside. He’s going to take some time, but he’s headed to Boston University next season with Malhotra, so hopefully we get a taste of what those two could be as an offensive duo in the NCAA.
After the Canucks top three winger prospects, there’s a fairly significant drop-off. Names like Gabe Chiarot, Anthony Romani, Yaroslav Bryzgalov and Vilmer Alriksson all have potential and some NHL traits. Chiarot plays exactly how teams want a bottom-six winger to play; he’s gritty, defensively responsible and can chip in offensively as well. Romani, on the other hand, is more of a skilled player with a good shot, while Bryzgalov and Alriksson have the size but both need to work on their skating before getting a shot at the NHL. Though these players do have these traits, it’s unlikely we see any of them get a taste of NHL hockey anytime soon, perhaps at all in their careers. However, there is a good chance we see two of them in Alriksson and Chiarot get looks in Abbotsford next season, while Bryzgalov and Romani play in the NCAA.
The last three wingers on this list are Wilson Björck, Connor Davis and Lucian Bernat. There could be something there with these guys, but more than likely they will be organizational depth for the future, if anything at all for the Canucks.
While we said the centre depth is in a really good place, the winger pipeline for the Canucks is in a good starting spot, especially when you consider some of the young players already on the Canucks roster. That being said, there’s still some work to do here to bring in some more guys with higher upside.
Defencemen
The names on this list look very underwhelming, but as we said off the top, this list doesn’t include what’s already up in Vancouver. The Canucks’ young defence core is in a very good spot, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to add depth throughout the organization.
Kirill Kudryavtsev and Sawyer Mynio both have the potential to become full-time NHL players. Not to say they will be more than bottom-pairing defensemen, but Kudryavtsev has already gotten a taste and didn’t look out of place, while Mynio was arguably Abbotsford’s best defenseman in his rookie season.
Both are on the smaller side as well, which could limit their potential as third-pairing guys. We’ve seen a shift in the league, where teams typically like to beef up their bottom pairing with bigger, meat-and-potatoes-style defencemen. Though Kudryavtsev and Mynio aren’t the biggest, both are smart and responsible; it wouldn’t come as a shock if both of them got opportunities this coming season in Vancouver, but with Mynio in particular, we’re still a couple of years away from seeing what he can truly be as a defenceman in pro hockey.
Like the wingers, there’s a pretty drastic drop-off after the top two defencemen in the Canucks pipeline. Samuel Eriksson, the Canucks lone defenceman selected in 2026, is a big, hard-hitting player, but he hasn’t spent much time at all playing against men in Sweden, with just one game this past year in the SHL. He has some of the traits of a potential bottom-pairing D man but still has a lot of work to do before that potential becomes a reality.
As for Aiden Celebrini, Basile Sansonnens and Parker Alcos, they probably aren’t much more than AHL depth. Sansonnens has played professional hockey in Switzerland, while Celebrini has spent the past two seasons in the NCAA and is headed back for another at Boston University. Alcos hasn’t played outside the WHL but is headed for Quinnipiac University this coming season.
Unless any of these three players take massive steps in the near future, we’ll likely see their names in Abbotsford or Kalamazoo, or see them sign elsewhere once their rights expire with the Canucks.
Goalies
The Canucks haven’t had any issue maintaining a very solid goaltending pipeline in recent memory. That continues with what they have now.
Dmitri Ivchenko may have been a bit of a surprising pick this year in the third round after taking Medvedev in the second round of the 2025 draft. The numbers he put up this year in Russia, however, are excellent. The traits are there; he’s tall, athletic, and plays with poise. It makes sense why the Canucks fell in love with this goaltender and felt they had to take him as early as they did.
Aku Koskenvuo and Ty Young both split time this year between Abbotsford in the AHL and Kalamazoo in the ECHL. Like Medvedev and Ivchenko, the traits are there with both of these guys. Look at the measurables; they are almost identical. We know the Canucks look for a certain profile of goalie that has brought them lots of success in past drafts, and it seems they’ve stuck with that as they continue to build that pipeline.
Which one of these four goaltenders is going to hit? It really could be any one of them. But that’s the beauty of drafting a goaltender you believe in as often as the Canucks do. They only need one or two to actually reach the potential they saw when they were selected.
Overall, the Canucks prospect pool is in good shape. As we’ve seen throughout each positional breakdown, there’s still work to be done on many fronts, but with this past year’s draft class being added, it’s in a much better place than it was just a year ago.
Though the big club is going to struggle for the next few seasons, when projecting what’s on the come-up, one can’t help but be excited for the possibilities with these new additions to the Canucks’ pipeline.
What do you think, Canucks fans? How do you feel the organization’s prospect pool looks now after these nine new draft picks? Let us know in the comments below!
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