Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
We got some picks, we got a trade, we're looking forward!
To be completely clear: I am not an NHL scout. Yes, I see some tape, but those tend to be highlight reels, which only show the best of a player, not the whole player. I read and heard a lot of scouting reports from folks who do the actual work, some public, some pay. What you're reading here is a combination of what I've read, heard, and seen, but it's other people putting in the real work. If you want more, hunt them down and definitely check out tape for yourself. It's fun!
Now, without further ado, what the Vancouver Canucks did done:
With the first draft under GM Ryan Johnson complete, what can we glean of their intent? Actions speak louder than words, and we haven't seen a whole lot of on-ice choices yet. This is, essentially, our first chance to see what the White Collars are thinking.
The odds-on favourite to go first to Vancouver went first to Vancouver. A lot of smoke was billowing in the week leading up to Draft Day, but when it cleared, Caleb Malhotra was their pick. There are loads of reasons to like Malhotra, on and off the ice. The phrase "future captain" comes up a LOT in his scouting reviews.
Clearly, the team decided to go to the centre instead of defence, but it is a rational decision. They didn't reach for him because there were a half-dozen players you could justify taking. Funny thing is, the player I thought of with last year's selection of Braden Cootes was "Bo Horvat light". With Malhotra, it's "imaginative Bo Horvat".
The same critique of Horvat sits on Malhotra: his skating. He knows where he needs to go, and he skates well enough to get there. And that's about it for criticism. He's very good defensively, proactive in breaking up plays and knocking people off the puck. He can pass it up and out, ideally following a teammate in and getting the return pass in the offensive zone. He protects the puck well, plays on the boards, and can score.
His floor is an excellent, third-line centre who desperate teams might move to the first. His ceiling is an excellent second-line centre that an average team has on the first. You know: Bo Horvat.
The Canucks got, possibly, a steal? Lots of scouting types were very happy with Vancouver picking up Adam Novotný at 24. Craig Button had him at 26, but the vast majority of pre-draft lists put Novotný in the mid-teens. He absolutely looks like an NHL player, little doubt there. Sturdy guy, decent skater, plays the body well, and his best offence is to get the puck off someone, skate in and shoot.
Hopefully, that straightforward game doesn't just translate well to the NHL but is the basis for some more imaginative play. Malhotra will occasionally take risks and try something different to see if he can pull it off, while Novotný takes a safer route. That "safer route" is for him, obviously, not his opponents. They're going to have a generally bad time getting past him/out of their zone if he catches them with the puck.
His NHL calling card might leave him in the bottom-six as a floor. With the right linemates, he can be the guy who plays puck retriever for the top line as his ceiling.
An 18-year-old giant at 6'7" and 236 lbs, it's a bit tough not to give Brooks Rogowski some grace. There's being awkward after a growth spurt, then there's being 6'7" at 18. At the start of the year, he looked like a guy who could reliably put in the work on the defensive side. As the season went on and he got more comfortable, he started doing things like controlling mid-air passes and no-look passes.
He's confirmed to Michigan State in two years, staying in Oshawa for 2026-26. Oshawa was lousy offensively last season and the worst team in the league. That situation can give Rogowski a lot of opportunities. It will be very interesting to see how he develops from here - and what his coaches ask of him.
Who's up for learning the Viking Row? Niklas Aaram-Olsen is the first Norwegian drafted by Vancouver, and if he makes it, will be the first to play for them. But he wasn't drafted for Pokémon reasons. Here's what he does:
I don't put a whole lot into the draft combine, but Aaram-Olsen shows up in the results repeatedly. Third in the Wingate power output test; third in the 10 metre sprint; first in the shuttle agility test, both left and right sides; seventh in bench press; tenth in hands-on-hips, no arm swing jump; and first in the standing long jump. The guy's got a physique, and he's not afraid to use it! But what's all that mean on the ice?
He's decently fast, but more than that, he's very quick. He breaks ankles when he's carrying the puck. He also has a variety of shots and gets it off at different angles, leaving goalies guessing. The risk is that he might think that those skills are enough. He played 16 SHL games last year and takes the defensive side seriously when lined up against men, but it came at the cost of his offence.
Dmitri Ivchenko played in the MHL (the Russian equivalent of the AHL) as a backup for a very good Omskie Yastreby team. He has a .922 goals against average, which sounds incredible until you realize that puts him 30th in the league overall. It's still good, but make sure you know what the stats mean when you read them.
His selling points are being a calm character. When he's in position, he has excellent control of his extremities, snapping his hands and feet into a blocking position. He does have issues outside the posts, losing track of the puck up high, and if he has to move side-to-side, he can go past his posts. Everyone remembers Arturs Silovs' second year, right? Thing is, we probably won't see Ivchenko for another three years - and that's if he agrees to go to Abbotsford. Who we'll see then is a bit of a mystery.
So first things first. Yaroslav Bryzgalov is not a good skater. And he also plays a fast game. These aren't the opposites they seem.
Bryzgalov is big in a phone booth, a player you can trust to win the puck when the battle takes place in four square feet along the boards. He's also a very good passer and knows where the puck should go before he gets it. If any opponent isn't paying attention, he'll make them play. One or two hits from him, and the entire team starts looking over their shoulders.
If he can get his foot speed up, even a little, he can get NHL minutes, though probably on the fourth line.
What's an NHL team without a Connor these days? Connor Davis is a perpetual motion machine, always skating after the puck. He likes to attack defencemen directly, and when the puck gets to the net, he'll buzz around it, looking for a jam, a wrap-around, any opportunity to get it across the line.
A re-entry, like Bryzgalov, he's a bit older than most players taken, so there's some concern he's as big as he's going to get. Still, 6' even is plenty big enough for an agitator, and he's heading to North Dakota next year to improve his skills.
When the draft gets past the 150-mark, you get players like Lucian Bernát. The 6'4", 200 lbs Bernát had an excellent statistical year in the Finnish U20 league for a rookie. His shoot-first mentality led to him being the second-highest scorer on the team. But that scoring dried up in the playoffs, and he ended up in penalty trouble instead of helping the team. He does love making contact as part of his game, but it's also a matter of timing.
We'll get a closer look this season when he joins Owen Sound.
"It's late, grab a big Swede and let's go."
-Imagined conversation among Canucks scouts at every draft
That's not entirely fair, but there are years when it feels like it. Eriksson is, indeed, a 6'6" Swede, and his focus is on defence. His first thought is to pin some poor forward that's fallen within his reach, but his second thought is to overthink it. His physical tools are plentiful, but his mind is not up to speed just yet. Practice and time might get him there, but he's drafted in the sixth round for a reason.
Yes, GM Johnson pulled off his first NHL trade on Day Two of the draft! It was:
A sixth-round pick from the 2026 draft, #161 overall, for a fifth-round pick in 2027, TBD
That is, technically, moving up in the draft. Eh, we'll take it.
