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CA’s top 20 Canucks summer prospect rankings: #6 Brooks Rogowski

Photo credit: © Steven Ellis | The Nation Network

By Jacob Fraser

Jul 30, 2026, 15:15 EDTUpdated: Jul 30, 2026, 14:42 EDT

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Welcome back to our collective CanucksArmy top 20 Vancouver Canucks summer prospect rankings. Today, we have our 6th-ranked prospect, Brooks Rogowski.

Brooks Rogowski

The Canucks added a big man down the middle of the ice at the start of the second round in this year’s draft. The focus of the Canucks draft this year was to add down the middle of the ice, and making the addition of Rogowski for this team’s future is very exciting.

The numbers don’t jump off the page. He wasn’t the flashy pick that fans necessarily wanted the team to take with the 33rd overall pick, but there’s a lot to like with the Michigan native, who is such a raw prospect even though he already seems to be a guarantee to have some role in the NHL in his future.

Last season with the Oshawa Generals, Rogowski scored 15 goals and added 27 assists for 42 points in 46 games. Though those point totals aren’t super significant, he managed to finish fourth on his team in scoring while missing 22 games.

This all came on the worst team in the OHL, with the Generals finishing the year with a 19-45-4 record. They also finished the year second last in goals for, so when taking all of this into account, his point totals are actually a bit more impressive than they might be at first glance.

The first thing that pops when it comes to Rogowski is his size. He’s a 6’7″ 235-lb centremen. Of course that’s the first thing to catch everyone’s eye, but there’s so much more to his game that makes him an excellent prospect.

Occasionally, players with Rogowski’s stature will struggle with their skating early on in their careers as they’re still growing into their bodies. In his case, though, he’s already a very fluid skater. His first step needs some work; he needs to get a bit more explosive. However, once he gets going, he can fly up and down the ice, using his long stride to his advantage.

On top of being a very solid skater, Rogowski is a solid puck handler. He’s by no means a Patrick Kane-esque dangler, but he has the skill to make plays in tight at the front, as well as beat defenders one-on-one.

Offensively, he took on a bigger role in Oshawa this past season than he had the previous year, and he showed that he can produce points with his skill and hockey sense, while also possessing a heavy shot.

On the defensive end, Rogowski is very responsible. He’s able to use his size and reach to break pucks up, and also uses that size to lay some heavy hits. However, we would like to see him hit players more often and be a bit more aggressive at times. He’s going to need to learn how to use his body more effectively before we see him make the jump to the pro level.

Overall, there is a lot to like about Rogowski’s game. That being said, he’s still a very raw prospect who needs to refine every part of his game to reach his full potential. Possibly the best news when considering how raw of a prospect Rogowski is is that he’s never really focused solely on hockey until fairly recently. Growing up, he wanted to play baseball and played both sports very competitively until he was drafted by the Generals in the OHL draft. With that in mind, we can certainly expect, with a bit more focus on hockey, that he almost certainly will get a lot better than what we’ve seen to this point.

Next season, he’s going to have a very good opportunity to do this. Rogowski will be returning to the OHL with the Generals, where we can expect him to have an even more increased role in all areas of the game for another year before he heads to Michigan State University for the 2027-28 season, where he’s currently committed to attend.

Projection

Ceiling: The ceiling for Rogowski right now is probably a middle-six centreman in the NHL. Though we’d love to sit here and say he’s going to be the next Tage Thompson, there just isn’t enough there in his game right now to say that’s a realistic path even as a ceiling. He does, however, possess enough offensive talent where he could be a very good third-line two-way centre that can add some extra offence throughout the lineup.

Floor: The floor for Rogowski seems to be an average fourth-line centre or 13th forward. The size and skating ability alone make him a player that will more than likely play NHL games in his career, but we need to see some growth in the other areas before we can call him a bona fide everyday NHLer.

ETA: He’s heading back to Oshawa this season, and then committed to Michigan State for the year after; we can probably expect him to stay there for at least a couple of seasons before making the jump to pro hockey. A fair ETA at this point would be a three-to four-year range for Rogowski.

Keep up to speed with our rankings so far with our honourable mentions and criteria, and our rankings thus far:

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