After the last two nights of results on the ice in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Vancouver Canucks now know where their second first-round pick (the Minnesota Wild’s) will slot in for the 2026 NHL Draft.

With the Minnesota Wild losing on Wednesday in Game 5 to the Colorado Avalanche, and the Anaheim Ducks getting eliminated in Game 6 by the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday, the Wild’s first-round pick will land at 24th overall. Vancouver acquired Minnesota’s first-round pick in mid-December when they traded their captain, Quinn Hughes. Along with that first-round pick, the Canucks acquired Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, and Liam Öhgren – three U24 players who made strong impacts on their roster throughout the season.

In Game 5, the Wild got off to a blistering start when Marcus Johansson scored just 34 seconds into the contest. By the end of the first period, trade deadline acquisition Nick Foligno potted a pair of goals to give the Wild a 3-0 lead heading into the first intermission. Then things took a turn.

The Avalanche made a goaltending change at the break, and that sparked them. Parker Kelly got them on the board in the second period, and they outshot the Wild 9-3 but still trailed by two after two. The third period was more of the same, with the Avalanche controlling most of the play, but they couldn’t pull themselves back to within one until the under four-minute mark from Jack Drury. Then, with the goalie pulled, Nathan MacKinnon picked the top corner to tie the game with under two minutes to go.

The game would go to overtime, and the Avalanche carried all of their momentum into that extra frame. Martin Necas, who shared postgame that he wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice at the time, found Brett Kulak with a wide-open net to eliminate Quinn Hughes and the Wild.

Fast forward to Thursday for Game 6 of the Golden Knights-Ducks series, and this one was not as close. Mitch Marner opened the scoring with a ridiculous between-the-legs, partial breakaway goal just over a minute into the game. We’re talking about potentially the goal of the playoffs thus far.

Like the Wild, the Golden Knights walked into the first intermission with a 3-0 lead, with a Brett Howden shorthanded goal and a Shea Theodore power play goal. Like the Avalanche, the Ducks pulled the game back to within two with a Mikael Granlund power play tally.

However, unlike the Avalanche, the Ducks weren’t able to claw their way back. In fact, it was the Golden Knights’ Pavel Dorofeyev who lit the lamp twice to win the contest 5-1.

We now have the top-24 of the draft order for the 2026 NHL Draft confirmed.

Picks 25-31 are still to be confirmed based on the results of the Montreal Canadiens-Buffalo Sabres series.

If the Canadiens can wrap up the series on home ice in Game 6, the order will be:

25. Seattle Kraken (Tampa Bay Lightning)
26. New York Rangers (Dallas Stars)
27. Calgary Flames (Vegas Golden Knights)
28. Buffalo Sabres

The final four teams of the Montreal Canadiens, Vegas Golden Knights, Carolina Hurricanes, and Colorado Avalanche are seeded based on the Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals results. As a punishment for the Pierre Dorion move made in 2021, the Ottawa Senators were stripped of their first-round pick, but pleaded hard enough to get it back this season. However, that pick is locked in to be 32nd overall.