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Could the Flames pull off some twin magic to draft both Ruck brothers?
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Photo credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
May 1, 2026, 10:00 EDTUpdated: May 1, 2026, 01:43 EDT
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A long, long time ago, Brian Burke, then general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, pulled off quite a feat. He drafted twins in the first round of the NHL Draft.
Ahead of the start of the 1999 NHL Draft, scouts were buzzing about a pair of Swedish siblings, Henrik and Daniel Sedin. Burke, through some wheeling and dealing, managed to not only convince the Atlanta Thrashers not to select either brother at first overall, but he landed the Canucks at second and third overall, selecting Daniel at second and Henrik at third.
The moves set up the Canucks franchise for their next decade.
With that in mind, and with apologies to our pals at Canucks Army, let’s talk about the feasibility of the Calgary Flames pulling off some twin magic of their own at the 2026 NHL Draft, in the form of the Ruck brothers, Liam and Markus.

Let’s talk about the Rucks

Born on Feb. 21, 2008, Liam and Markus Ruck are from Osoyoos in British Columbia’s scenic Okanagan Valley. Markus shoots left and is listed as a centre, through he mostly has played the wing in the Dub, while Liam shoots right and is listed as a winger.
The duo has played on the same teams dating back to their youth playing with the Okanagan Hockey Academy. Liam was drafted ninth overall by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the 2023 WHL Prospects Draft, while Markus went 21st overall to the Tigers that year. (The Tigers already had the ninth pick, but they traded up from the second round to grab the second pick to draft Markus.)
The duo both made their WHL debuts during the 2023-24 season with Medicine Hat – Liam on Nov. 22 and Markus on Nov. 25 – but they wouldn’t both play in the same WHL game that year. (Liam got into a 2024 playoff game, but Markus did not.) In their first WHL game together, the season-opening in 2024-25 on Sept. 21, 2024, they both scored goals.
Liam had a really good rookie year, posting 41 points in 61 games, while Markus had a very respectable 29 points in 62 games. In the 2025 playoffs, Liam played more (18 games to Markus’ 14) and scored more (10 points to Markus’ four) and got more opportunities higher up the rotation than Markus did. Only Liam played games for Medicine Hat at the Memorial Cup. That said, both were highly regarded by the coaching staff and the scouting community.
This season, with Gavin McKenna elsewhere, the Rucks were leaned on heavily by Medicine Hat. And they delivered. In the regular season, Liam had 45 goals and 104 points, while Markus had 21 goal and 108 points – they were one and two on the WHL’s points leaderboard. While Markus played a little bit of centre, he won only 48.8% of his draws, and once Andrew Basha arrived from the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers in early January, Markus played the majority of his games on the wing.
Once Basha arrived and Markus became a full-timer winger, the brother duo found another level offensively – with Markus getting the bigger boost, perhaps because he wasn’t dealing with centre responsibilities anymore. Here’s a breakdown of the yearly split in the 2025-26 schedule.
2025
2026
Andrew Basha
AHL
32 GP, 18 G, 32 A,  1.56 P/GP
Liam Ruck
36 GP, 18 G, 50 P, 1.39 P/GP
32 GP, 27 G, 54 A, 1.69 P/GP
Markus Ruck
36 GP, 8 G, 49 P, 1.36 P/GP
32 GP, 13 G, 59 P, 1.84 P/GP
Long story short, the Rucks are really, really good. (And really fun to watch.)

A quick scouting report on the Rucks

From our pal Steven Ellis, here’s what he wrote about each of the twins in his April draft rankings.
Liam was ranked 14th:
Medicine Hat lost a lot of offense with the departures of Gavin McKenna and Cayden Lindstrom, among others, but Ruck made up for it. He loves to shoot from anywhere and does an excellent job of getting the puck where it needs to be. He led all draft eligibles with 45 goals, and that’s good for seventh in the country. Ruck is extremely dangerous around the net with a variety of quality shot choices at his disposal. His chemistry with his twin, Markus, was obvious from the get-go. It feels like it’s going to be difficult to select both together without some funky trade magic – that’s the downside of their incredible second-half play.
Markus was ranked 18th:
Markus’ twin, Liam, is getting most of the love from scouts for his play-driving and goal-scoring abilities. But Markus is a special playmaker – he works as hard as anyone you’ll find in junior hockey. He loves to do the dirty work to make plays happen, no matter whom he’s looking for on the ice. Ruck has obvious chemistry with his brother but can also dazzle on his own. He has quickly established himself as one of the biggest risers for the draft, so don’t be surprised if he’s taken in the top 20. I would still like to see both brothers apart from each other, but the raw talent is definitely there.
In our aggregated consensus list, the consensus has Liam at 24th and Markus at 29th. But we will note that in terms of the nine rankings we looked at that updated their public lists in March or April, half of them had both twins in their top 32, a big uptick from earlier in the season. They’re trending up.

Thinking out loud

The Rucks are unlikely to be selected in the first half of the first round of this year’s draft.
However, imagine this. Let’s just say that somewhere in the early 20s, a team selects Liam. The very next team in the draft order would probably immediately call up that team and go “Oh wow, it’s such a shame you don’t have the next pick so you could complete the set.” And if that team didn’t select Markus themselves, these performances would continue until Liam’s team bit, met the asking price, and traded into a position to draft Markus, too. The prices would not be cheap.
The Flames own Vegas’ pick, which projects to be somewhere in the 20s depending on how the playoffs unfold – the lowest it can be is 24th, the latest it can be is 31st. But in addition to that pick, the Flames have four second rounders, projected to be roughly 35th, 36th, 52nd and 56th overall. PuckPedia’s Perri Pick Value Calculator projects that the 35th and 36th picks, combined, are of a slightly higher value than the 22nd overall pick.
So if the Flames wanted to make a splash and move up to select both Ruck twins, it probably wouldn’t completely use up their second round picks.
It’s worth noting, though, that the Flames are one of four teams that are projected to have a late first-rounder – between 20th and 32nd – that also have picks in the first 10 slots in the second round. The Flames are projected to have 35th and 36th, but Vancouver has 33rd and 41st, Seattle has 38th and Pittsburgh has 39th. So the Flames probably have the horses to pull off this move, but there are probably going to be other teams that know how good the Rucks are and have a similar idea.
We’ll see which team, if any, can escape draft weekend at the end of June with both Ruck twins.

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