A ranking without an explanation is just a list of names.
We’ve debated these prospects time and again this season. We know their games inside and out, as well as why we ranked them where we did. Now, we’re going to share the story of building our draft board with you here.
The process itself is messy; a fun, exhausting, and challenging affair with lots of literal ups and downs.
Before you dive in, I should add that if you’re not familiar with the top players in our first round, then it’s probably best that you read through the guide first and come back to this section. All of the stats, NHL comparisons, skill descriptions, game reports, and tracked data we refer to in our explanations can also be found in each player’s profile.
Unlike NHL teams, we are not drafting any of these players. We lack any sort of control over their future. They won’t be integrated into our system, and we don’t have a development team to help them realize their potential. In turn, we don’t have needs or specific strategies. We have to consider every potential outcome and scenario, look at all of these prospects from different angles, and rank them based on overall perceived value, no matter the profile.
The 2026 NHL Draft Class and Its Top Four
Many of our assumptions about the 2026 NHL Draft class coming into the season turned out to be incorrect.
Last season, we identified many toolsy prospects like Tynan Lawrence, Ethan Belchetz, Oliver Suvanto, and others who we believed would build on and leverage their asset base, becoming higher-end play-drivers and firmly establishing themselves as top-end prospects in their NHL draft year. For most of these players, this scenario never materialized. Instead, they fell short of our projections, forcing us to adjust their positions on our board.
Gavin McKenna plateaued, too. While many of the flaws that showed up in the first half of his freshman season were there in the WHL, we anticipated he would correct some of them and evolve into a more complete player in the NCAA. Unfortunately, he remained largely the same player in a new environment, and it took him more than several weeks to reestablish all his WHL strengths in college.
It’s not uncommon for players to need some time to adjust to college hockey, and it will become even more common now. We eventually saw Lawrence and Oscar Hemming go through their own adjustment periods in college, only looking like their best selves for brief stretches of games.
McKenna is not your typical prospect, though. We expected him to squash his competition, and instead, the No. 1 overall spot remained up for grabs for most of the season.
Two candidates emerged to take McKenna’s spot: Ivar Stenberg and Chase Reid.
The first put together one of the most impressive SHL seasons ever for a draft-eligible prospect. The second had one of the steepest growth curves over the past few seasons, going from being cut from the USHL to a No. 1 OHL defenceman.
McKenna briefly lost his spot to Stenberg on our post-World Juniors board. At the time, the Penn State forward’s lack of pace, motor, and physicality made it too difficult for our staff to keep him at first overall after Stenberg all but eliminated the gap between them at that point in the season.
Stenberg can make many of the same plays as McKenna. He proved it against tougher competition, with a more well-rounded game, a much better ability to create off contact, better defensive habits, and more energy. Even at the time, the upside argument remained clearly in McKenna’s favour as a potential 100-point player, but the risk attached to his projection tanked his value.
Upside isn’t the only thing that we take into account when we’re making our board. It’s the main factor, the one that explains most of our positions, but certainty also plays a large role. It refers to the probability that a prospect will reach their upside, that they will be able to play their projected style of game in the NHL. We were more certain that Stenberg could do that than McKenna. Factoring in both upside and certainty, Stenberg looked like a slightly more valuable prospect than McKenna at the time. So, we flipped them.
Immediately, the dam broke. All of the pucks that should have gone in for McKenna in the first half went in in the second half. Chemistry developed between him and his linemates, his luck turned, and his production skyrocketed. Suddenly, we regretted not holding on for a few more weeks.
That’s what happens sometimes when making draft boards. You move on from a take for only a moment, and the universe immediately course-corrects.
What reassured our team more than the surge in scoring was that McKenna was back to his old self in some of our viewings. He stayed more connected to his teammates, found them across layers better, manipulated defences with more ease, and most of all, played with more pace. His more streamlined shifts, where he would pressure the opposition, backcheck to the right spots, and make not just the most dangerous play, but the correct one, made him more projectable.
The certainty argument was no longer fully in Stenberg’s favour, and our formula pushed McKenna back ahead.
We discussed pushing Reid to No. 1 on a few occasions and even wrote an article about the possibility in December, but that never materialized. While his upside, in a vacuum, may be even greater than McKenna’s – a true No. 1 defenceman possessing all of the skills of the trade – the certainty argument played in favour of the two wingers.
It’s easier to imagine McKenna and Stenberg living up to their potential in multiple different environments than Reid. Defencemen’s overall impact and growth curve seems tied more to their NHL team than the typical forward, making their projection trickier, especially for defencemen who lean more on their offensive skills like Reid.
Some defencemen emerge from the second and third rounds and land in perfect spots for their skill sets, going on to look like top-end NHLers, while other top-drafted defencemen don’t land in the right system and miss out on a prized No. 1 power play role and key minutes, diminishing their overall production and impact.
We firmly believe that Reid will become that top-pairing NHL defenceman, but fit may play a bigger role in his career than in McKenna’s or Stenberg’s, which gave them a slight edge.
Elite Prospects isn’t drafting for a team. We can’t outline players’ futures in our system and plan for them. Because of this, we have to value many different types of players equally and forecast how their careers may play out based on the environments they may find themselves in.
Carson Carels’ placement may have been one of the easiest decisions our team made this season. While he may lack the offensive upside of the three previously mentioned prospects, he still projects as a high-end play-driver, and there is also almost no role or fit consideration with Carels. Capable of playing multiple styles of game effectively, he should succeed no matter where he ends up, adapting to the demands of his team and moulding his game to it, becoming at least a high-minute, top-four defenceman.
The Risers
We’ve already established that upside and certainty are the two main elements we value when making a draft board. To that, we added a player’s potential fit in specific NHL organizations. The next factors in line in our ranking formula are a player’s draft-year progression and their potential to continue to progress post-draft (developmental runway).
The stagnation of many of the class’ top prospects made its risers shine even more, bright stars in an otherwise dreary landscape. Caleb Malhotra, Wyatt Cullen, and, to a lesser extent, Daxon Rudolph all ended up vaulting to the forefront of our draft boards due to significant development from their draft-minus-one to the end of their draft season. We ended up giving those players an extra boost at the very end, thinking there was a better chance they would continue their growth curve than others would restart theirs.
The same argument used to push McKenna and Stenberg ahead of Reid also fits here. We believe Malhotra and Cullen could play their style of game in more distinct environments than Rudolph could. Rudolph is an even more stereotyped version of Reid, leaning almost fully on the offensive side with underdeveloped defensive skills. Despite possessing high upside, if he can’t get that first power play role and favourable, offensive deployment with his NHL team’s top line, he may become more frustrating than useful to a coach.
Other factors separated Malhotra and Cullen. We do give a slight edge in value to centres over wingers, but likely not as much as NHL teams, preferring to differentiate players based on their straight skills and impact – if the upside, certainty, and other factors discussed previously aren’t already pulling a player ahead.
While Cullen possesses a higher level of pure skill, can dance around defenders better off the rush, and orchestrate offensive zone play with an extra level of creativity than Malhotra, there is a large gap between their ability to play off contact and defend. Malhotra clearly wins in those categories, projecting as a two-way centre with power forward elements.
His profile is similar to Carels’ in many ways, but the defenceman’s tools gave him the edge. There is a large skating gap between these two prospects. Carels has more of the asset requirements of a high-minute, top-pairing NHL defenceman than Malhotra, who must refine his stride to push his upside and fill a potential top-line role. We project him more as a second-line pivot at the moment.
The Heated Debate and NHL Comparables
There is no prospect we debated more than the one we ranked eighth overall, Viggo Björck, a situation that may mirror what’s currently happening in many NHL rooms. Outliers put stress on a scouting process built to find high-probability takes, as they should.
Teams have to be able to recognize those players and integrate them into that process or risk looking very foolish. If we held the 22nd overall line on Björck from our early-season ranking, we would run the risk of that happening. Instead, we’ve placed Björck at eighth, a position that better reflects his upside and the lack of certainty associated with his projection.
Our North American and European staff disagreed on the value and the projection of the 5-foot-9 forward. One side saw him as an even rarer outlier, a shorter Brayden Point, projecting a higher-end skill level and elite hockey sense, while the other compared him more to Marco Rossi, a sturdy, skilled, but mostly supportive centre.
Both players earned top-six centre roles in the NHL. The first one maintained his first-line spot, becoming a top-end centre, while the other one was perceived as an ill-fit in his first organization, demoted in the playoffs, and ultimately traded away, despite functioning well as the team’s top centre.
We compromised by giving Björck a middle-ground projection between these two outcomes, while keeping his outlier status and the lower likelihood of achieving such an upside in mind.
Comparables take up more and more space in our discussions every year. After accumulating thousands of views on NHL prospects over seven years, we’ve seen enough examples of each archetype to project which ones became NHLers at a higher rate and what kinds of roles they played.
A player with multiple comparables is more likely to succeed, while a unique profile is usually a bad omen.
When evaluating outliers like Björck, we also spend time discussing how the league perceives them and the opportunities they may or may not get.
Our role is to forecast players’ careers, rather than just project them. To do a good job of that, we have to think like NHL organizations. Just because we believe a player should be given certain spots in the lineup doesn’t mean that teams will see it in the same way. And because players can only succeed if they’re allowed to play in the role that suits them, we have to predict if they will get that chance.
A higher skill level and the outside chance at a top centre role had Björck edge out his countryman, Malte Gustafsson, on our board. The room was again split down the middle with those two; others valued Gustafsson’s top-four projection, a higher level of certainty, multiple comparables, and just as steep a development curve during the season.
Ethan Belchetz ended up slipping between them and slotting in at ninth overall as the debates raged on, with the same arguments that kept Björck ahead of Gustafsson. There’s a higher level of special upside in his game, a more unique and valuable profile.
There are very few 6-foot-5 forwards with Belchetz’s attributes: Physical potential, high-level playmaking and scoring touch, and a defensive mind. NHL teams tend to pay a premium for those players in trades, draft capital, and cap space due to their rarity.
But while Belchetz’s upside pushed him ahead of Gustafsson, too many factors favoured Björck, the main one being his riser profile. Belchetz mostly showed the same strengths as in his draft-minus-one this season, while Björck continued to add to his game, improving his speed, physicality, and earning roles that are rarely, if ever, given to players of his age and size. Our European staff also trusted him to become a top-six NHLer more than our North American staff trusted Belchetz to become the same.
In the end, Björck, Belchetz, and Gustafsson closed out our top 10.
The Fallers
When ranking prospects, the asset that we value the most is hockey sense. It makes prospects more adaptable and flexible, more capable of playing different roles and excelling in situations that best suit their attributes.
In other words, hockey sense influences all of the factors that we value when making our board, especially upside and certainty.
With Keaton Verhoeff and Alberts Šmits both having that deficiency in their profile, it was the main reason why they ended up falling outside of our top 10, after spending parts of the season inside it. While they both have the stature necessary to become top-four defenders in the NHL, they struggle to make reads under pressure, to break out pucks in controlled ways, and drive the play without causing turnovers.
The second attribute that we value the most – especially for defencemen – is skating. The highly mobile Šmits ranks one spot ahead of Verhoeff for this reason. His skating base makes it easier for him to close on opponents, access passing lanes, carry the puck, and recover his positioning after mistakes. It also gives him an easier path to a high-minute top-four role. Verhoeff could also take on a similar role down the line, given his physicality, massive frame, and flashes of playmaking ability, but to get there, he will need to improve his pivoting and overall agility.
After holding onto sixth overall for three consecutive boards, Xavier Villeneuve’s position became untenable with the way he ended his season. He lost part of his offensive effectiveness, his identity, and the top power play spot that defined him; as a result, he dropped to 13th overall.
Villeneuve has both the hockey sense and the skating ability. We believe in his upside, especially now that he will follow Lane Hutson’s path to Boston University. That said, belief could only keep him so far up our board, given his lower certainty, outlier profile, lack of game development, and the possibility that he may require a perfect organizational fit to reach that upside.
The first thirteen prospects on our board all have special attributes. They form the core of this draft class and could all emerge as difference-makers at the NHL level with another boom in their development. While the first four have the best combination of upside and certainty, we could easily find arguments to rank the remaining in any order.
The Complementary Players
The next prospect in our ranking is one of our favourites in the draft class.
We were tempted to push Adam Novotný into our top 10 a few times this season, after seeing him take over OHL games. But at the NHL level, we see him more as a complementary scorer, a secondary play-driver with a high defensive impact. It’s the same for Ryan Lin and Tynan Lawrence. They all play mature, physical games, with some holes, but plenty of skill. As Novotný has the highest chance of reaching a top role, his upside pushed him ahead of the other two.
Continuing our skilled, complementary players tier are Maddox Dagenais, Oscar Hemming, and Alexander Command.
The first two are versions of the same power forward archetype. Dagenais plays a more eventful, pacey game, with more flashes of physicality, scoring, and playmaking. Hemming managed the game better, showing more tactical and play-building ability in a much tougher league. His shortened season and drop in performance in the last weeks of it had us favour Dagenais. The Québec Remparts forward had one of the steepest development curves this season, going from a low-motor forward, waiting for the game to come to him, to one of the most driven forecheckers in the class. It’s a highly encouraging improvement that suggests he may be in the middle of a breakout.
Command’s profile is closely aligned with Lawrence’s. Both players flashed playmaking and transition skills, but it’s their physicality, defensive support, and motor that received the highest marks during the season. Command’s tools can’t quite compete with Lawrence’s, Dagenais’, or Hemming’s, but he may end up providing just as much value at the NHL level if he reaches his upside.
What separates these players from the rest of our first round is the higher level of confidence that we have in their projection and upside. They have NHL profiles and more than a few comparables.
The Rest of the Board
The factors used to rank the prospects from 1 to 19 continue to shape the rest of our ranking, with upside playing the largest role. But our hard-line philosophies soften the deeper we go into the board. We start valuing scouts’ preferences and beliefs in players more, and we compare prospects less on their potential future impact and more on their raw tools. Background information about a prospect’s work ethic and desire to improve also becomes increasingly important.
A good example of this is the placement of Ilia Morozov and Oliver Suvanto in our top-32, two prospects with very similar profiles. One sits 21st and the other at 28th overall. This difference in placement reflects their growth curve and the development runway we think they have left, but mostly, it shows that our North American scouts believed in Morozov more than the European scouts did in Suvanto. It’s the same faith gap that pushed Elton Hermansson one spot ahead of Yegor Shilov.
We hope that this ‘Making of the Draft Board’ article sheds light on our ranking process and that, by reading this explainer and the rest of the guide, the thousands of hours we put into this project shine through. As with every draft guide, we promise to come back next year with an even more refined product, as we learn from our methods, mistakes, and, hopefully, our many hits.
Chess master
Vision
Tactician
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