Pals, the 2026 NHL Draft takes place June 26 & 27 in Buffalo, New York. It’s a pretty big one for the Calgary Flames, who will enter the draft weekend with multiple first round selections for the third consecutive year.

Heck, they control 11 picks in this year’s draft, including eight picks in the first three rounds. In terms of importance, this is a draft that could really catapult the Flames’ youth movement forward in a big way.

As we’re preparing for the upcoming draft, we’re consulting a ton of our colleagues throughout hockey that specialize in the NHL Draft. The good news is that there are a ton of really smart people providing detailed scouting reports and rankings. The bad news is that their opinions seem to vary wildly about the prospective order of the upcoming draft.

To illustrate that, we’ve built an aggregated look at things utilizing 10 recent public draft lists.

The lists we looked at

The aggregated top 33

From the 10 lists we surveyed, 55 different players were in the top 32 on at least one. 15 players appeared on all 10 lists. We weighed everything out and here are the players in the top 33 spots, listed with their highest appearance on a ranking, their lowest appearance on the ranking, and their mode (their most common spot on lists). [It’s 33 because a pair of players tied for 32nd spot.]

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
1	LW Gavin McKenna	Penn State (NCAA)	1st	2nd	1st
2	LW Ivar Stenberg	Frolunda HC (SHL)	1st	4th	2nd

The big difference here? McKenna is first on six lists and second on four lists. Stenberg is first on three, second on five, and fourth on two. It’s pretty close to a coin toss. McKenna and Stenberg are the only players in the top five of all 10 rankings.

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
3	D Chase Reid	Sault Ste. Marie (OHL)	1st	8th	3rd
4	D Keaton Verhoeff	North Dakota (NCAA)	3rd	11th	5th

Reid is the consensus third player, ranked third on six lists and in the top five of eight of them. Verhoeff is generally seen as fourth, but not quite universally. (He’s third on two lists, fourth on two, and fifth on three.) He’s top five on seven of the rankings, so he doesn’t slide too far when he does.

Alright, wave goodbye to the rankings have some consensus from here on out.

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
5	D Alberts Smits	Jukurit (Liiga)	4th	9th	7th
6	RW Viggo Bjorck	Djurgardens IF (SHL)	3rd	12th	8th
7	D Carson Carels	Prince George (WHL)	2nd	23rd	5th
8	C Caleb Malhotra	Brantford (OHL)	3rd	15th	5th, 10th

Smits appears kinda all over the place in rankings, but is top 10 on every list. Bjorck is similarly scattered but clustered around 8th overall – and top 10 on nine lists. There’s a big range of outcomes for Carels, mostly clustered in the top 10… but with a couple lists that are much cooler on him. Malhotra appears kind of all over the place.

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
9	C Tynan Lawrence	Boston University (NCAA)	4th	17th	9th
10	LW Ethan Belchetz	Windsor (OHL)	7th	16th	12th, 13th
11	D Daxon Rudolph	Prince Albert (WHL)	7th	NR	8th

Lawrence is top 10 on four of the lists, but sneaks into the top five twice. Belchetz appears scattered throughout the middle part of the first round. Rudolph is top 10 on six lists… but also outside of the first round entirely on another.

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
12	LW Oscar Hemming	Boston College (NCAA)	10th	19th	17th
13	LW Adam Novotny	Peterborough (OHL)	11th	21st	14th
14	D Ryan Lin	Vancouver (WHL)	6th	26th	16th
15	D Xavier Villeneuve	Blainville-Boisbriand (QMJHL)	5th	NR	Many
16	D Malte Gustafsson	HV71 (SHL)	6th	NR	Many
17	C Oliver Suvanto	Tappara (Liiga)	9th	28th	18th
18	RW Elton Hermansson	MoDo Hockey (Allsvenskan)	12th	NR	14th, 15th, 20th

Now we enter the portion of the rankings where there are players the scouting community really likes – five of these players appear in somebody’s top 10 – but might not love – three of them slide outside of the first round on someone’s list. Case in point: Villeneuve is fifth on one list… but is 15th on the consensus list because he’s also outside the first round on another.

Rank	Player	Team	High	Low	Mode
19	RW Marcus Nordmark	Djurgardens IF (U20 Nationell)	10th	NR	29th
20	LW Nikita Klepov	Saginaw (OHL)	15th	NR	18th, 19th
21	RW J.P. Hurlbert	Kamloops (WHL)	10th	NR	20th
22	LW Wyatt Cullen	U.S. National Under-18 (USHL)	11th	NR	24th
23	LW Ilia Morozov	Miami (Ohio) (NCAA)	16th	NR	28th
24	RW Liam Ruck	Medicine Hat (WHL)	10th	NR	Many
25	D Juho Piiparinen	Tappara (Liiga)	15th	NR	23rd
26	RW Mathis Preston	Vancouver (WHL)	9th	NR	9th, 27th
27	C Maddox Dagenais	Quebec (QMJHL)	13th	NR	31st
28	C Alexander Command	Orebro HK (U20 Nationell)	16th	NR	Many
29	LW Markus Ruck	Medicine Hat (WHL)	12th	NR	Many
30	D William Hakansson	Lulea HF (SHL)	19th	NR	22nd
31	C Yegor Shilov	Victoriaville (QMJHL)	19th	NR	29th
T32	RW Casey Mutryn	U.S. National Under-18 (USHL)	21st	NR	Many
T32	D Adam Goljer	HC Dukla Trencin (Slovakia)	17th	NR	Many

This is nominally the back half of the first round. But four of the players in this cluster – Marcus Nordmark, J.P. Hurlbert, Liam Ruck and Mathis Preston – were top 10 on at least one ranking – and every single player in this cluster were also ranked outside of the first round of at least one ranking.

Next up

Falling outside of the projected first round mix, but appearing on at least one top 32 on one of the cited rankings, are the following 22 players, in descending order:

C Jack Hextall (Youngstown, USHL)
D Nikita Shcherbakov (Tolpar Ufa, MHL)
LW Niklas Aaram-Olsen (Orebro HK, U20 Nationell)
RW Gleb Pugachyov (Chaika Nizhny Novgorod, MHL)
C Tomas Chrenko (HK Nitra, Slovakia)
LW Jaxon Cover (London, OHL)
D Tommy Bleyl (Moncton, QMJHL)
C Ryan Roobroeck (Niagara, OHL)
D Ben MacBeath (Calgary, WHL)
C Simas Ignatavicius (Geneve-Servette HC, NL)
LW Victor Plante (U.S. National Under-18, USHL)
LW Adam Valentini (University of Michigan, NCAA)
LW Chase Harrington (Spokane, WHL)
LW Julien Maze (Calgary, WHL)
G Tobias Trejbal (Youngstown, USHL)
LW Cooper Williams (Saskatoon, WHL)
G Dmitri Borichev (Loko-76 Yaroslav, MHL)
D Maksim Sokolovskii (London, OHL)
C Brooks Rogowski (Oshawa, OHL)
C Ryder Cali (North Bay, OHL)
D Giorgios Pantelas (Brandon, WHL)
LW Pierce Mbuyi (Owen Sound, OHL)

Long story short

Folks, there seems to be a consensus top cluster of top prospects in this year’s draft, and then a utter lack of consensus from there. There’s a lot of talent at the top of the 2026 NHL Draft class, but nobody’s entirely sure who’s the best and what order most of the first round should unfold in. And that’s a recipe for a ton of movement, surprises and chaos when we hit draft weekend at the end of June.

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