Most would agree that June 26, 2026, the date of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft, is going to be one of the most important dates in Vancouver Canucks franchise history. But an arguably more important date arrives this week with Tuesday’s Draft Lottery, which will determine where the Canucks are picking in said Entry Draft.

The Canucks, having finished last overall in the 2025-26 standings, will have a 25.5% chance of winning the first overall selection, an 18.8% chance of second overall, and a 55.7% chance of third overall. As those who have followed the 2026 draft class know well already, where the Canucks land within that top three will make a big difference in who the Canucks are likely to pick.

And who the Canucks pick will, naturally, make a big difference in how they shape their roster moving forward into their continued rebuild. Players like Zeev Buium, Tom Willander, and Braeden Cootes are the centrepieces of the rebuild in this present moment, but whoever the Canucks pick with their first selection in this 2026 Draft will almost certainly become the new centrepiece.

Below, we break down the possible selections the Canucks might make in the 2026 Entry Draft, and how those different selections might impact their roster decisions in the more immediate future.

There really isn’t much mystery to it. If the Canucks get either the first or second overall pick, they’re almost certainly going to pick one of the two wingers who are ranked head-and-shoulders above the rest of their draft class in McKenna or Stenberg.

The Canucks were probably looking to move another veteran winger this offseason, anyway, but drafting a probably-NHL-ready future star winger would make that a guarantee. Currently, the Canucks have Jake DeBrusk, Brock Boeser, Liam Öhgren, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki already jockeying for top-six wing positions, and then there’s the likes of Drew O’Connor, Linus Karlsson, and even Nils Höglander as other options there.

One would want McKenna or Stenberg to start in the top-six and presumably spend their whole careers there, so that probably starts with moving out a body. DeBrusk makes the most sense there, as has been discussed plenty. Boeser is less likely, for the reasons that he seems to want to stay, that his contract would be tougher to trade, and because both McKenna and Stenberg traditionally play the left wing, where DeBrusk more frequently lines up.

Landing a McKenna or Stenberg would also drastically reduce the chances of someone like Höglander getting another real shot here, so you might as well trade him, too, at that point, clearing out some of the roster clutter and allowing some new blood to join a forward corps now led by an 18-year-old. Selling high on O’Connor is another option worth consideration.

A McKenna or Stenberg collection might also impact the Canucks’ decisions at centre. They’ll want someone for their new star winger to play with, and many have promoted the idea of keeping around the senior Elias Pettersson for explicitly this purpose – or, more accurately, to cover this purpose until a true future 1C can be acquired in some future draft. A Canucks team that drafts McKenna or Stenberg probably retains both Pettersson and Marco Rossi for at least this next year to give them two decent options in the top-six, and to allow them to stash a 19-year-old Cootes in the AHL for a season of seasoning.

If the Canucks drop down to third overall, which is technically the most likely outcome, then their decision becomes a lot murkier. There are at least three different positional paths they can go down at third overall, but the most likely is still the player who was ranked there most of the season: the 6’4”, right-handed Keaton Verhoeff, who just had a stellar pre-draft freshman campaign with the University of North Dakota.

If the Canucks draft Verhoeff, it’ll have to be because they see him as the best player available, because RD happens to be their position of greatest organizational strength right now. They’ve got Filip Hronek locked up until 2032. They’ve got Tom Willander coming off an excellent rookie campaign that made him look like a slam-dunk top-four defender for the next long while. They’ve got Victor Mancini as a still-intriguing prospect who needs more NHL time. And they’ve also got Kirill Kudryavtsev, who has played plenty of RD already at the AHL and NHL levels (as has the younger Elias Pettersson).

If the Canucks were to draft Verhoeff, they’d have to be thinking about a long-term right side led by Verhoeff and Willander. Which means that, if they drafted Verhoeff, they’d probably have to start exploring the trade value of Hronek. Such a trade wouldn’t happen right away – it’d be a fine enough thing to have Verhoeff join an already-strong right side where he’s starting out third on the depth chart and working his way up. Eventually, however, Hronek would be in the way and, given that Hronek has to be near his peak value as an asset, sooner rather than later is probably best for a trade.

This would be a big change to the Canucks’ current course, but it could also be a really good thing. The Canucks are, overall, still a bit future-asset-poor. Getting a reason to trade their single-most valuable veteran piece is a nice way to restock the cupboards, and Hronek would almost certainly bring in multiple assets with first-round-equivalent value.

Fellow RD Chase Reid has chased Verhoeff up the draft rankings all season, and some now have him ranked slightly higher for the 2026 Draft. If the Canucks also prefer Reid, you can take pretty much everything we’ve said about Verhoeff and apply it to him, albeit on a slightly slower timeline. Reid is thought to be a bit less NHL-ready than Verhoeff.

If the Canucks aim to draft more positionally at third overall, then there is a good chance they pick Caleb Malhotra. He’s both the biggest riser and the likely top centre in the 2026 Draft Class, and the local ties are obvious enough for the son of Manny.

Speaking of which, the most immediate consequence of drafting Malhotra would pertain to personnel, not the roster. If the Canucks draft Malhotra, they’re probably not hiring his dad to be their next head coach. Talk about an unnecessary conflict of interest.

But there would also be implications to the roster. Almost immediately, the Canucks would put both the elder Pettersson and Rossi to market and see which one brought the bigger return. Neither Malhotra nor Cootes, the Canucks’ current top centre prospect, are necessarily ready for primetime minutes in 2025-26, but the front office will want to clear at least a little bit of a lane for one of them to make the team. A one-two punch of either Pettersson or Rossi and either Malhotra or Cootes for 2025-26 seems like the right mix.

Eventually, however, the team would expect Malhotra and Cootes to take over as the one-two punch of the future, which would probably necessitate trading both Pettersson and Rossi. Again, like the Verhoeff scenario, this could be a bit of a blessing in disguise, as it would allow the Canucks an opportunity to stock up their pick and prospect cupboards some more, especially if they time it right. Trading Pettersson this offseason, running Rossi as 1C, and then trading him at a higher value next offseason seems like the exact right sequence of events.

The Canucks could also look to draft any of the LDs who have hovered around the top-five rankings, which would most likely mean WHL product Carson Carels or Latvian Alberts Smits. This would be an interesting selection for the Canucks to make, because as much as RD is their position of greatest organizational strength, it’s the LD that is probably their strongest in the truly long run. The Canucks’ top overall asset, Buium, plays LD, as does the younger Elias Pettersson, and prospects Kudryavtsev and Sawyer Mynio.

Draft one of Carels or Smits, and the Canucks have almost locked in the left side of their defence for the next decade. It’s a top-four one-two punch of Buium and the 2026 draftee, who will presumably compete directly for the top pairing job. Then, it’s Pettersson, ideally developing into a rock-solid long-term bottom-pairing option.

The Canucks would have to sell Marcus Pettersson off for spare parts. Not necessarily immediately, as neither Carels nor Smits is guaranteed to play in the NHL next year, but by the 2027 offseason at the latest. From that point on, it’s a young man’s left side, which also probably means the Canucks hang on to Hronek even harder as their one veteran blueline mainstay.

Picking up Carels or Smits also means that the Canucks might as well flip some of their LD depth, like a Kudryavtsev, to the highest bidder. It’ll be getting mighty crowded on that back-end otherwise.