When Jim Rutherford was hired as President of Hockey Operations of the Vancouver Canucks, he revamped the club’s amateur scouting department.

Patrik Allvin was brought on as General Manager with a long history of scouting and leading the Pittsburgh Penguins’ drafts under his belt. Cammi Granato was hired as Assistant General Manager and placed in charge of the amateur scouting department. Todd Harvey, recently promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting before Rutherford was hired, has remained in his role. Numerous other scouts have come into and departed the organization since.

Overall, this amateur scouting department has overseen three complete drafts: 2022, 2023, and 2024 for a total of 18 draft picks. From this sample size, it’s possible to identify a few trends. From there, we may even be able to identify players that fit with these recent trends.

Here’s a look at every player the Canucks have selected over the last three NHL Drafts.

Of these selections, the Canucks have selected eight Canadians, five Swedes, three Americans, one Russian, and one Swiss. This scouting department has not selected any Czechs or Finns, although the pro scouting department has had no problem recommending them for the big club to go out and acquire.

Positionally, they are pretty spread out. Centres, wingers, and right-shot defencemen are all at four apiece. Ty Young is the only goaltender to be selected by this regime. However, the five left-shot defencemen are the most of any position taken in the draft.

For hockey programs, the list is simplified in a few ways. USHL and NCAA are being consolidated, and we will be counting where draft picks played after they were drafted. The majority of Canucks draft picks have spent time in the NCAA with six of them going south of the border. Five players hung out in the OHL. Three players played in the SHL and WHL each. Only one player, Basile Sansonnens, has spent time in the QMJHL.

The Canucks have made a habit of drafting taller players as well. Eight of the players they’ve selected are 6’2’’ or over. Six players are fairly average sized at 6’0’’ to 6’1’’, and four players are considered undersized by NHL standards at 5’11’’ or under. Interestingly, three of the four players classified as undersized made their NHL debut this past season (Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Ty Mueller, and Kirill Kudryavtsev).

Over the last three NHL drafts, the Canucks have made two selections in the 1st round, none in the 2nd round, four in the 3rd round, five in the fourth round, one in the 5th round, four in the 6th round, and two in the 7th round. At the time of writing, the Canucks have six draft picks in the 2025 NHL Draft: 15th (1st), 47th (2nd), 65th (3rd), 143rd (5th), 175th (6th), and 207th (7th).

So, looking at these trends, it may be possible to predict a player the Canucks are interested in. Taking the most common outcomes from the above categories, we get the following: a 6’2’’ or taller, Canadian, left-shot defenceman, who will play in the NCAA. Using that criterion, several players came very close to checking every box, and two stood out above the rest.

A 6’5’’, 215 lb left-shot defenceman who is commonly slotted as a 2nd or 3rd round talent. Noted for his gifted skating and huge size, Wang was started late at playing organized hockey. Seen as one of the biggest developmental picks in the entire draft, there’s a lot to work with, but teams will need a lot of runway.

There are two reasons why he falls into this category. One is because, while he committed to playing for Boston University (the same school that Tom Willander was at and where Aiden Celebrini remains) for next season, he has delayed that for another year and will return to the OHL. The other is that he’s being listed as Chinese rather than Canadian. While it’s fantastic to get more people from diverse backgrounds into hockey, it does eliminate him from this exercise.

The big defenceman stands at 6’4’’ and weighs around 190lbs. He’s ranked closer to the back end of the draft, around the 5th or 6th round. Currently committed to attend Colgate University next season, the only reason he falls into this category is his handedness; Turner is a coveted right-shot.

Another big player, which was part of the criteria in the first place. A 6’4’’ 190lb winger, he plays with an edge and has some puck skills. The biggest issues with him are his skating and pace of play need to improve. Like Turner, he’s ranked in the back half of the draft.

Apart from being a winger, Cloutier is also disqualified for the same reason as Wang, he won’t be joining the NCAA until the 2026-27 season. Cloutier will be playing in the QMJHL for another season. When Cloutier does move down south, he’ll be attending Clarkson University.

While Busch has committed to Penn State, he has also signed a WHL scholarship and development deal with the Everett Silvertips. A big Vancouver-born winger, the 6’2’’, 208 lbs left-wing has a long way to go in refining his game. He’s strong and hard to knock off the puck, but he needs to improve in many other aspects. If a team does take a flyer on him, it will be in the 6th or 7th round.

You know why he’s here. Collect all the Petterssons in the world and send John Shorthouse to an early grave.

There are only two players in the 2025 NHL entry draft that check off all the boxes. They are tall, left-shot, Canadian defencemen who are committed to play in the NCAA next season.

Jackson Smith

A lot of ink has been spilled about Smith. Some have him ranked as the second-best defenceman in the draft, while others question his hockey sense and prefer Kashawn Aitcheson or Radim Mrtka. Regardless, he’s expected to go a little bit before the Canucks are, currently, slated to pick in the first round. Bob McKenzie and Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis both have him ranked 12th, while Elite Prospects has him at 6th. He recently committed to playing at Penn State University for next season.

However, there is a player slightly more Canucks-coded than Jackson Smith. In the last three drafts, as noted above, the Canucks have only picked in the first round twice. They have, however, picked in the 4th round five times. There’s a player who’s ranking is within the middle-rounds that perfectly checks off everything we are looking for in a future Canuck.

He’s 6’2’’, check. He’s a left-shot defenceman, double-check. He’s a Canadian who played in the USHL last season and is committed to the University of Connecticut for next season, oh you best believe that’s a couple of big ol’ checks right there.

Elite Prospects, for example, have him ranked 96th overall on their draft board. That’s right at the tail end of the 3rd round, in which the Canucks have the 65th selection.

His draft profile is a little bit like Tom Willander, Sawyer Mynio, and Elias Pettersson’s, where their production lagged behind their skills and skating. He’s credited as a strong offensive activator who uses his skating to make things happen at both ends of the ice. He’s also very young, which was a selling point to the Canucks in drafting Jonthan Lekkerimaki. Additionally, there’s a mean streak to his game.

His main developmental weakness is the lack of power in his shot but, as Canucks fans know, that is something that can be vastly improved throughout a player’s career.

So there we have it, the most Canucks-by-nature players in this draft are Jackson Smith and Anthony Allain-Sammaké, with the latter being more likely to be available to the Canucks at some point in the draft. These two Canadian left-shot defencemen who are committed to playing in the NCAA next season are both over 6’1’’. If recent trends are any indication of the future, maybe we’ll see one of them in a Canucks uniform over the weekend.