The most important part of a rebuild is nailing your top-end draft picks, particularly those in the top ten.

Vancouver Canucks fans are all too aware of how that can go wrong, as the team’s previous attempt at a rebuild was hindered by a couple of high-profile missteps.

It is, of course, also nice to get a couple of hits with late first-round picks and second-round picks. Where would the Montreal Canadiens’ rebuild be without second-round pick Lane Hutson, for instance?

The Canucks can be relatively optimistic that they’ve succeeded on those two fronts in their most recent draft. Caleb Malhotra should be a foundational piece for the rebuild, and at least one of Adam Novotny, Brooks Rogowski, and Niklas Aaram-Olsen ought to be an impact player.

Combine that with the likes of Braeden Cootes, Zeev Buium, and Tom Willander, and the Canucks are off to a pretty decent start to their rebuild.

But what would kickstart their rebuild significantly is getting a hit or two outside of the first two rounds. Consider the aforementioned Canadiens: as important as Hutson and first-round picks Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky have been, where would the Canadiens have been last season without fifth-round pick Jakub Dobes stepping up as their number-one goaltender?

Or, think of whether the Canucks’ dominant 2010-11 season ever would have happened without third-round pick Alex Edler and fifth-round pick Kevin Bieksa anchoring the blue line?

So, which of the Canucks’ recent mid-to-late-round picks has the potential to be a difference-maker along those lines?

Let’s take a look at a few possibilities.

The Canucks’ seventh-round pick in 2022 has earned his admirers among the scouting set, as well as among the neurons within my own brain. I’m a fan of the poised and intelligent defenceman.

With Zeev Buium and Elias Pettersson firmly ensconced in the NHL, Kudryavtsev is the Canucks’ top prospect at left defence, though that might say more about the Canucks’ limited defensive depth in their prospect pool than about Kudryavtsev himself.

Still, Kudryavtsev has looked comfortable in his few games in the NHL and he had the privilege of being the only Canucks defenceman last season who had a positive goal differential at 5-on-5. Sure, it was only plus-2 in just three games, and he was due for some regression, but it’s something.

The Canucks’ goaltender of the future might take a while to get to the NHL: Dmitry Ivchenko, picked in the third round this year, could be the guy.

Ivchenko has the size necessary to be an NHL goaltender at 6’3” and combines that size with refined technique and a disciplined mental game. He’s about as pure an Ian Clark pick as you could imagine.

While he’s a long-term project, Ivchenko’s already solid technique shows that he’s willing to put the work in to improve. He’s got the tools to be a number-one goaltender in the NHL if it all comes together.

The Canucks taking Lucian Bernat in the sixth round this year was one of my favourite bets of the draft.

With his 6’4” stature, explosive stride, and excellent shot, Bernat has power forward potential. Even if that just means he becomes a bottom-six grinder who instills fear on the forecheck and pops in a few goals, that would be a late-round win for the Canucks.

What’s intriguing to me about Bernat is the potential for him to play a complementary role, with a high-motor, physical, two-way game with some finish that can support a couple of more talented linemates on a top-six line.

I’m probably too high on him, but I’m a sucker for a sniper with size.

When the Canucks selected Anthony Romani in the sixth round in 2024, he already looked like a late-round steal: a 58-goal, 111-point forward, who didn’t get picked earlier because he was in his second year of eligibility, but, as a July birthday, was still young with plenty of potential.

Then his post-draft year was derailed by injuries, but he still recovered for a dominant playoff run, putting up 12 goals and 24 points in 16 games.

Romani’s freshman season at Michigan State University gave even more reasons for optimism, as he had a very solid 14 goals and 28 points in 37 games, while developing his all-around game. In two years, Romani could very well be the right wing on the Canucks’ second line.

The Canucks are high on 2024 fourth-rounder Riley Patterson after he stepped up in a big way in his final year in the OHL.

Patterson led the Niagara IceDogs in scoring by a wide margin, putting up 40 goals and 84 points in 60 games with limited offensive help. More than that, he showed his versatility, as he moved from the wing to centre and became a faceoff ace, winning 61.6% of his faceoffs in the playoffs.

The odds of Patterson playing centre in the NHL are low given the influx of competition at centre, but Patterson has all the tools to be a top-six NHL winger if he can continue his skyrocketing development.

I’m trying to do something impossible with this article: predict who’s going to exceed expectations. If you could predict that, then wouldn’t those predictions just become the new expectations?

Perhaps Gabriel Chiarot or Wilson Bjorck will break out at forward, or defenceman Samuel Eriksson will find his offensive game. Maybe the real late-round star that helps the Canucks rebuild succeed will come out of the 2027 or 2028 drafts.