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CA’s top 20 Canucks summer prospect rankings: #9 Sawyer Mynio

Photo credit: Abbotsford Canucks

By Jacob Fraser

Jul 27, 2026, 15:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 27, 2026, 12:20 EDT

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s a new week, and we’re kicking it off with another installment of the CanucksArmy collective top 20 Vancouver Canucks summer prospect rankings. Today we’re looking at one of the best defensive prospects who has to crack the NHL lineup in the Canucks organization.

Sawyer Mynio

The Canucks, in recent years, have turned their lack of high-end defensive prospects into a strength. Not only because of blue-chip prospects like Zeev Buium and Tom Willander, but also because of some of their mid-round gems like Elias Pettersson and Sawyer Mynio.

Mynio had a very solid junior hockey career that included a trip to the Memorial Cup in his draft year. He played on a very good Seattle Thunderbirds team for the majority of his time in the WHL, and was able to produce solid numbers to go along with his team’s strong play.

This past season, Mynio made the jump to pro hockey full-time, joining the Abbotsford Canucks. The expectation for a rookie defenceman drafted in the third round in the AHL is usually just about showing flashes and growth. Give them easy minutes to start the year and insulate them with a veteran. That plan, however, wasn’t in the cards for Mynio.

With Abbotsford and Vancouver both facing many injuries early on in the season, Mynio was forced into a much larger role than expected, essentially right out of the gate. For a lot of games, Mynio was playing all situations, being heavily featured at five-on-five while also seeing both penalty kill and power play time.

Even once the Abbotsford defence core got healthy and back to normal, Mynio continued to man the team’s top power play unit over guys like Kirill Kudryavtsev and Victor Mancini. He finished the year with three goals and 18 assists for 21 points through 58 games.

It’s a very solid season for a rookie defenceman in the minors. The plus-minus, however, is difficult to look at, but we need to take into account the fact that Abbotsford was not a very good team this past season. They gave up a lot more goals than they scored; for a defenceman playing heavy minutes to have a bad plus-minus isn’t a surprise, nor is it the end of the world.

With Mynio’s play, there is a lot to like. Offensively, he has very good vision, he moves and skates well, and he has a big point shot. Defensively, it’s the same kind of thing: he moves and skates well, he’s smart, and he knows where to be.

Overall, he’s just a very solid two-way defenceman who has shown he can be relied on in all situations.

The biggest hindrance to his defensive game, currently, is his size. Listed at 6’1”, 185 lbs, Mynio needs to get stronger if he’s going to really turn himself into an NHL defenceman. He’s a bit easier to move off pucks and move around the front of the net. He certainly competes hard and doesn’t seem to be okay with losing battles, so he has the mentality for it. If he were to add a bit more weight and strength, he could be a force at both ends of the ice.

This season couldn’t have been easy for Mynio. His first season of professional hockey, and he was essentially thrown to the wolves. Despite that, he managed to exceed expectations in his role in Abbotsford; now, if he can continue to build off that, he could certainly see some time in the NHL in the near future.

Projection

Ceiling: The ceiling for Mynio is currently a bottom-four NHL defenceman. The kind of player that ideally is a very good third-pairing guy, but a solid plug-in to a second pairing. There also could be something there as far as a potentially secondary powerplay quarterback. Essentially, a player that can play 17 or so minutes a night and play all situations for an NHL team.

Floor: The floor for Mynio is a top-pairing AHL defenceman that can be very solid organizational depth, making the jump between the NHL and AHL when needed. Think the Christian Wolanin type.

ETA: There’s certainly a world where Mynio sees some NHL action down the stretch this season. Though he likely doesn’t have much of a chance to make the team out of camp, he could play games in the spring or when injuries come up this year. The following season, however, he could have a chance to really push for a full-time NHL job, assuming he adds the much-needed strength to his game.