2026 NHL Draft Thread

[Bingo]

Pronman added.

• Now 11 rankings and you need 4 to get an average.
• 4 different players ranked 1st overall
• McKenna lead is down to less than half a point
• Flames improve a draft spot for all three picks since the last update

1 Gavin McKenna LW 1.82
2 Keaton Verhoeff RHD 2.36
3 Ivar Stenberg RW 2.36

4 Tynan Lawrence C 4.64

5 Ethan Belchetz LW 7.00
6 Chase Reid RHD 7.64

7 Alberts Smits LHD 10.33
8 Carson Carels LHD 11.55
9 Ryan Lin RHD 11.70

10 Viggo Björck C 14.00

11 Mathis Preston RW 15.09
12 X Villeneuve LHD 15.45
13 M Nordmark LW 15.70
14 E Hermansson RW 16.27
15 Daxon Rudolph RHD 16.82
16 Adam Novotný LW 17.09
17 Caleb Malhotra C 17.10
18 Ryan Roobroeck LW 17.44
19 Oliver Suvanto C 17.70

20 Juho Piiparinen RHD 19.00
21 M Gustafsson LHD 19.50
22 J.P. Hurlbert LW 20.91
23 Oscar Hemming LW 21.63
24 Will Håkansson LHD 21.67

25 Nikita Klepov LW 22.56
26 Jack Hextall C 23.00

27 Egor Shilov C 25.44

28 N Aaram-Olsen LW 27.38
29 Beck Edwards C 27.80
30 Ilia Morozov C 28.78
31 Tomas Chrenko C 31.00
32 M Dagenais C 32.00
33 Adam Valentini C 32.50
34 B Rogowski C 32.63

35 Ales Di Iorio C 34.67

36 Casey Mutryn F 36.00
37 O Mūrnieks C 37.75
38 Oscar Holmertz C 37.83
39 Giorg Pantelas RHD 38.00
40 Pierce Mbuyi LW 38.33

[Enoch Root]

Watching this evolve, and watching the tiers slowly define themselves, is fascinating (for me at least).

I continue to have inexplicable and pointless feelings that we are on a McKenna and/or Malhotra train, just as I had a feeling much of last year that we would end up with Reschny.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Watching this evolve, and watching the tiers slowly define themselves, is fascinating (for me at least).

I continue to have inexplicable and pointless feelings that we are on a McKenna and/or Malhotra train, just as I had a feeling much of last year that we would end up with Reschny.

My guess is we end up with Lawrence.

[devo22]

Maddox Dagenais seems to be working his way back into 1st round discussion. Had a good start last season, then had a concussion and seemingly looked off after that. Seems to be healthy and on his way up. Wouldn't mind him with our 2nd.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Watching this evolve, and watching the tiers slowly define themselves, is fascinating (for me at least).

I continue to have inexplicable and pointless feelings that we are on a McKenna and/or Malhotra train, just as I had a feeling much of last year that we would end up with Reschny.

I have had a feeling for a while we were going to land McKenna but it was amplified immensely by the horrid start. Seeing McKenna drop in a lot of rankings has me feeling it is still meant to be but just not at 1st overall like I thought.

[sureLoss]

Pronman has released new rankings:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/685...gavin-mckenna/

Tier 1: Bubble NHL Star and top of the lineup player
1. Lawrence C
2. Verhoeff D
3. Stenberg LW
4. McKenna LW

Tier 2: Top of the lineup player
5. Smits D
6. Carels D
7. Reid D

Tier 3: Bubble top and middle of the lineup
8. Rudolph D
9. Hurlbert LW
10. Suvanto C
11. Belchetz LW
12. Villeneuve D
13. Malhotra C
14. Rogowski C
15. Hermansson RW
16. Morozov C

His 17-31 he calls Tier 4: middle of the lineup

[Roof-Daddy]

Its nice that no GMs are stepping up to pay the price to acquire our potentially available players, that way we have time to continue to play our way out of a top 4 pick. I'd hate to see the Flames get one of the top tier guys.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Its nice that no GMs are stepping up to pay the price to acquire our potentially available players, that way we have time to continue to play our way out of a top 4 pick. I'd hate to see the Flames get one of the top tier guys.

Well you'll be ecstatic to know that even with the recent wins, the projected standings as of Dec 10 by the same publication has the Flames finishing dead last.

I'd hate to waste my time stewing over something completely outside my control.

[Ba'alzamon]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

There is a Swedish Dman named Smits at 5.

Latvian, actually.

[bigrangy]

Originally Posted by devo22

Maddox Dagenais seems to be working his way back into 1st round discussion. Had a good start last season, then had a concussion and seemingly looked off after that. Seems to be healthy and on his way up. Wouldn't mind him with our 2nd.

Best puck skill for a big guy we’ve seen in a long time, he’s nasty.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

There is a Swedish Dman named Smits at 5.

Will his best move be called the Smitsonian?

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Groot

Well you'll be ecstatic to know that even with the recent wins, the projected standings as of Dec 10 by the same publication has the Flames finishing dead last.

I'd hate to waste my time stewing over something completely outside my control.

You mean how you're wasting your time stewing over my post?

I'm hardly stewing, just an observation about where this team is trending right now and it's unfortunate for a guy who really wants this team to land McKenna for somewhat personal reasons.

At the start of the year I didn't think it was remotely possible, but the rough start got my hopes up.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Pronman has released new rankings:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/685...gavin-mckenna/

Tier 1: Bubble NHL Star and top of the lineup player
1. Lawrence C
2. Verhoeff D
3. Stenberg LW
4. McKenna LW

Tier 2: Top of the lineup player
5. Smits D
6. Carels D
7. Reid D

Tier 3: Bubble top and middle of the lineup
8. Rudolph D
9. Hurlbert LW
10. Suvanto C
11. Belchetz LW
12. Villeneuve D
13. Malhotra C
14. Rogowski C
15. Hermansson RW
16. Morozov C

His 17-31 he calls Tier 4: middle of the lineup

He's probably the worst analyst in pro sports. It's nice reading the comments section and seeing all the people calling this guy out for the moron he is. Sometimes I think he bases his ratings off what will get a reaction from people for clicks and not on actually any ability to judge talent.

[devo22]

out of curiosity, I looked up Pronmans December list for the 2025 draft. Now, things obviously change during the draft year, there's risers and fallers, there's injuries and so on and so on ... but I was surprised to see he had Martone ranked #1 at the time. I know it was supposed to be the "Hagens draft" for a long time, but I didn't remember that.

Tier 1
Bubble elite NHL player and NHL All-Star

1 Porter Martone
2 James Hagens

Tier 2
NHL All-Star

3 Matthew Schaefer

Tier 3
Bubble NHL All-Star and top of the lineup player

4 Michael Misa
5 Roger McQueen

Tier 4
Top of the lineup player

6 Anton Frondell
7 Caleb Desnoyers

Tier 5
Bubble top and middle of the lineup player

8 Kashawn Aitcheson
9 Jackson Smith
10 Justin Carbonneau
11 Victor Eklund
12 Lynden Lakovic
13 Joshua Ravensbergen

Tier 6
Middle of the lineup player

14 Brady Martin
15 Jake O'Brien
16 Milton Gastrin
17 William Moore
18 Logan Hensler
19 Radim Mrtka
20 Carter Bear
21 Jakob Ihs Wozniak
22 Kurban Limatov
23 Cullen Potter
24 Ivan Ryabkin
25 Sascha Boumedienne
26 Blake Fiddler
27 Cameron Schmidt

take whatever you want from that, but there's no denying that Pronman likes to go against the grain.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by devo22

out of curiosity, I looked up Pronmans December list for the 2025 draft. Now, things obviously change during the draft year, there's risers and fallers, there's injuries and so on and so on ... but I was surprised to see he had Martone ranked #1 at the time. I know it was supposed to be the "Hagens draft" for a long time, but I didn't remember that.


take whatever you want from that, but there's no denying that Pronman likes to go against the grain.

Potter at 23 but no Reschny.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

My guess is we end up with Lawrence.

He certainly fills an organization need. I just hope he has some untapped offensive potential.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by devo22

out of curiosity, I looked up Pronmans December list for the 2025 draft. Now, things obviously change during the draft year, there's risers and fallers, there's injuries and so on and so on ... but I was surprised to see he had Martone ranked #1 at the time. I know it was supposed to be the "Hagens draft" for a long time, but I didn't remember that.


take whatever you want from that, but there's no denying that Pronman likes to go against the grain.

He's almost marginalized himself into the hot take draft prospect analyst.

[Ba'alzamon]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He certainly fills an organization need. I just hope he has some untapped offensive potential.

He's been scoring over two points per game since he came back from his injury.

[devo22]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He's almost marginalized himself into the hot take draft prospect analyst.

I don't think it's that bad. I just think he falls victim to a.) some of his biases and b.) the temptation of going for what clicks well, from time to time. But to his credit, he seems to own his mistakes (he has "prospects I was wrong about" articles on The Athletic). For me, he's certainly behind guys like Scott Wheeler, that's for sure.

I do predict though that ranking Gavin McKenna at 4 will age extremely poorly.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He certainly fills an organization need. I just hope he has some untapped offensive potential.

Currently leading the USHL in points per game. Granted, he's played 15 fewer games than the others due to missing time earlier on with an injury.