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Instant Reaction: Who do Canucks fans want at third overall?
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Photo credit: © @OHLHockey on Twitter/X
David Quadrelli
May 6, 2026, 12:00 EDTUpdated: May 6, 2026, 11:41 EDT
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By now, you’ve heard the news.
The Vancouver Canucks did not win the first overall pick at the NHL Draft Lottery and the first chance to draft Gavin McKenna. To make matters worse, it was the Toronto Maple Leafs who jumped up four spots to get that opportunity at June’s draft instead.
Truly, it was a nightmare scenario of sorts for Canucks fans on Tuesday night.
The San Jose Sharks jumped up seven spots to second overall as well, bumping the 32nd-ranked Canucks down to third overall.
During the season, we write Instant Reactions after every Canucks game here at CanucksArmy. At the end, we ask our readers to give their thoughts on the game in the comments section below. After a night like Tuesday night though, we didn’t really need to ask before people started giving their takes and opinions about what the Canucks should do at third overall. We did anyways though, and received over 100 responses from fans across all of our social media accounts. Let’s dive in.

Who do Canucks fans want to see drafted at third overall?

Overwhelmingly, people responded with genuine sadness and bitterness that the historically unlucky — dare we say cursed — Canucks once again fell down the draft rankings.
A good number of people also brought up the idea that, because the forward-prospect-heavy San Jose Sharks won the second overall pick, there’s a world where they pass on winger Ivar Stenberg and instead choose to add a defenceman like Chase Reid, Keaton Verhoeff, or Carson Carels to their fairly weak defence prospect pipeline. We’ll explore that idea more in depth later today, but it brings up a good point, so let’s just get that out of the way now. If Ivar Stenberg is available when the Canucks select at third overall, that’s who the Canucks should select. 
But since that’s not exactly a likely outcome, we’re going to explore the other names, most of whom are almost guaranteed to be available at third overall.

Caleb Malhotra

By far, Caleb Malhotra is one of the more popular names among Canucks fans right now. The son of Abbotsford Canucks head coach and ex-Canuck player Manny Malhotra, Caleb Malhotra added an exclamation point to a strong first season in the OHL when he put up 13 goals and 13 assists through 15 playoff games with the Brantford Bulldogs.
Read our profile on Malhotra here!

Chase Reid

For a while, it seemed like Keaton Verhoeff was the can’t-miss third overall pick in this year’s draft. Not only is that no longer the case, but Verhoeff is also now not even unanimously viewed as the best defenceman in this year’s class. Instead, Chase Reid was one of the names we saw most from Canucks fans:
Although some fans who were recently hurt by Quinn Hughes’ departure did worry about the fact that Reid is American:
Read our profile on Reid here!

Keaton Verhoeff

Though he isn’t the unanimous choice at third maybe he once was, there are still plenty of Canucks fans who want to see the Canucks select Keaton Verhoeff at third overall:
Read our profile on Verhoeff here! 

Another popular answer: Don’t pick at third

Multiple Canucks fans want to see the Canucks trade down or even up in the draft.

Our experts

Ahead of the draft lottery on Tuesday, our own Dave Hall and Tyson Cole — the hosts of Blackfish, the CanucksArmy prospect show — put together a mock draft of their top 16 prospects. Both had McKenna and Stenberg at one and two, but Dave had Chase Reid at third, while Tyson had Carson Carels at third. On top of that, both had Viggo Björck ranked higher than Caleb Malhotra. You can read that ranking by clicking here!
Who do you want to see the Canucks select with the third overall pick? Let us know in the comments section below!
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