The Vancouver Canucks falling to the third overall pick was the most likely result of the draft lottery, but that didn’t make the lottery balls falling the Toronto Maple Leafs’ way any easier to watch for Canucks fans.

Now the Canucks face a much more difficult decision.

I mean that literally. If they had won the draft lottery, the decision would have been made for them: draft Gavin McKenna or spawn thousands of Canucks fans lamenting that they didn’t pick Gavin McKenna.

Even second overall would have meant an easy decision: take Ivar Stenberg unless whoever picked first overall took Stenberg instead, in which case, take McKenna. Simple.

Third overall, however, means making a real decision. While there’s a general (though certainly not complete) consensus that McKenna and Stenberg are the top two players in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft, no one seems to agree on who should go third overall.

Some public draft rankings have defencemen like Chase Reid or Keaton Verhoeff at third overall. Others prefer centre Caleb Malhotra. At least one is high on winger (or maybe centre) Viggo Björck.

That gives the Canucks plenty of options — arguably, too many options. Some think the Canucks should focus on their biggest area of need in this draft, which they argue is at centre and lean towards Malhotra, but most fans just want the Canucks to take the best player available.

It sounds so easy. Taking the best player available is a startlingly simple draft philosophy, which makes you wonder why all teams don’t do it. Why don’t they just draft the best player? Are they stupid?

The truth is, “best player available” is largely a fiction. NHL teams and media draft experts alike don’t know for certain who the best player is at each pick. They’re taking an educated guess at what the future holds based on scouts, analytics, overall draft philosophy, and personal preference.

That’s the catch: you’re not just trying to take the best player available at the draft — you’re trying to take the best player in 3-5 years.

Sometimes, it seems painfully obvious when a team has failed to take the best player available. There were a lot of people who wanted the Canucks to draft Logan Stankoven in the second round in 2021, but the Canucks felt he was too small and so went with Danila Klimovich instead. Now, Stankoven has seven goals through eight playoff games this year, while Klimovich has yet to play in the NHL and might not even get re-signed by the Canucks.

But most times, it’s only obvious in hindsight. The 2008 draft is an excellent example. After Steven Stamkos at first overall, there was a run of four defencemen from second to fifth — Drew Doughty, Zach Bogosian, Alex Pietrangelo, and Luke Schenn. Arguably, the best defenceman in that draft didn’t go until ten picks later at 15th overall: Erik Karlsson.

I say “arguably” because Doughty has had a pretty phenomenal career. But Karlsson was definitely better than the player taken sixth overall after the defencemen: Nikita Filatov. For that matter, he definitively turned out better than any of the non-Stamkos forwards taken ahead of him.

And yet, most draft rankings had Karlsson outside of the top ten heading into the 2018 draft. Filatov was, according to essentially every draft expert out there, the best player available when the Columbus Blue Jackets picked at sixth overall. He played all of 53 NHL games and tallied 14 points.

Or take 2018, when Filip Zadina fell into the laps of the Detroit Red Wings at sixth overall. He was obviously the best player available, right? They had to take him.

The next player drafted was Quinn Hughes at seventh overall. Zadina has been out of the NHL for two years, and Hughes is a Norris Trophy winner.

Of course, the real meaning of “best player available” as a drafting philosophy is in opposition to drafting for need. But that shouldn’t affect the Canucks in the slightest for one simple reason: they need everything.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. With Aleksei Medvedev in the system, they can probably avoid drafting a goaltender third-overall — probably — but they need everything else.

Some might quibble with that assessment, suggesting that the Canucks have plenty of young defencemen. Between Zeev Buium, Tom Willander, Elias Pettersson, and Victor Mancini, along with promising prospects like Kirill Kudryavtsev and Sawyer Mynio, do they really need defencemen?

Yes. Unequivocally, yes.

As promising as Buium and Willander may be, neither is a guaranteed top-pairing defenceman, let alone a surefire number-one. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in their potential.

Meanwhile, Pettersson faltered in his sophomore season (though perhaps more because of the system than anything else), while Mancini wasn’t able to stick in the NHL. There’s still reason to believe in both of them, but they don’t negate the need for a true, top-tier defenceman.

And yes, the Canucks have needs at centre and on the wing as well. Braeden Cootes is very promising at centre, but could top out as a third-line guy in the NHL, and everyone else in their system is at least a tier below Cootes.

Jonathan Lekkerimäki is the Canucks’ top prospect on the wing, and I want to believe he’ll become a top-line sniper, but it’s becoming harder and harder to sustain that belief. At least Liam Öhgren looks like a solid middle-six option, and maybe Riley Patterson will move to the wing and provide a boost to the system on the right side, but there’s no guaranteed first-line forward on the way.

The upside is that the Canucks ought to be able to toss “drafting for need” right out the window. In a way, when you need everything, you don’t need anything.

If the Canucks’ scouting staff decides that Caleb Malhotra is the best player available ahead of the defencemen on the board, then so be it. But let it be because they believe Malhotra will be the better player than because they feel they need a defenceman.

Of course, if the San Jose Sharks pick a defenceman and Stenberg falls to third overall, the Canucks don’t need to over-complicate things: just take Stenberg. He won’t end up like Filatov or Zadina. Right?