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Should the Flames select Tynan Lawrence in the first round?
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Photo credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
Ryan Pike
Feb 24, 2026, 16:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 23, 2026, 22:32 EST
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The Calgary Flames went into the 2025 NHL Draft with a pretty glaring hole in their system: centres.
Seven rounds later, they concluded proceedings after having added Cole Reschny, Cullen Potter, Theo Stockselius and Yan Matveiko up the middle. As a result, the Flames aren’t completely bereft of prospects up the middle, but it may still be an area where they feel they want to prioritize adding at this year’s draft.
With that in mind, let’s talk about Tynan Lawrence, one of the youngest players available in the 2026 NHL Draft class and perhaps the top centre available in this year’s draft.

The scouting report

A product of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Lawrence is a left shot centre listed at 6’0″ and 185 pounds. He’s an August 2008 birthday, so he won’t turn 18 until six weeks after the draft.
Lawrence spent two seasons (2022-23 and 2023-24) at the prestigious Shattuck St. Mary’s prep school in Minnesota, then moved onto the United States Hockey League’s Muskegon Lumberjacks to start the 2024-25 season. (That’s the same team that current Flames forward Matvei Gridin played in his draft year.)
After starting this season in Muskegon, Lawrence moved onto Boston University during the mid-season break, debuting with the Terriers on Jan. 9. He has just two points (and 25 shots on net) through 13 games with B.U.
Here’s what Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis wrote about Lawrence in his mid-season rankings in January:
It’s been a rough few weeks for Lawrence, who left the Muskegon Lumberjacks after dominating the USHL during a 13-game stretch. Now, he has just a single point to show for it, although BU hasn’t been particularly good, either. Lawrence has shown much more confidence, and scouts liked how he looked like his old, shift-dominant self against Providence recently. Lawrence’s ability to win battles consistently and get shots into dangerous areas has been evident this year. But injuries have limited Lawrence to fewer than 30 games total this year, so there’s still a bit of catch-up going on. As of now, though, Lawrence is the best center in this draft class, and he has the potential to be a No. 1 in the NHL.

The case for Tynan Lawrence

If the Flames want to add to their high-end centre depth, Lawrence is considered the best centre available in this draft. He might not be a perfect prospect – we’ll get to why momentarily – but it’s hard to quibble with his sheer potential. Yeah, he hasn’t set the world on fire as a mid-season add at Boston University – as a 17-year-old – but we’ve seen plenty of high-end teenagers over the past couple of seasons go to the NCAA and face some growing pains. Rather than continue to dominate the USHL, at least Lawrence is having to struggle and adjust and adapt – and teams are learning new things about him in the process.
It’s also worth noting that Lawrence was playing a bit in the Boston area, and against that area’s youth teams, while Flames special advisor Jarome Iginla was coaching his kids in the area. We don’t expect Iginla to be an expert on the kid’s game, but any bit of familiarity would give some added insights into how Lawrence has progressed over the past few seasons.

The case against Tynan Lawrence

Here’s the big challenge with Lawrence: his sample size of higher-end hockey is fairly small, and so scouting and analytics folks might have a bit of a confidence issue with projecting his progression. One of the reasons why teams kinda love Canadian major junior as a development path is because high-end players enter the WHL at 16 and usually have two full seasons under their belts before they’re drafted – players with late birthdays sometimes have three seasons. You can draw conclusions based on multiple seasons in the same league, but how confident can teams be based on a season and change in the USHL for Lawrence?
And we’re not going to throw stones at Lawrence for struggling in college as a 17-year-old, but we’ll point out that Cullen Potter did not struggle to this extent, and the how of Lawrence’s struggles to score might erode some confidence that he can become what teams hope he can be – an elite centre.
Even with Lawrence’s so-far-mixed jump to college, he’s still consistently high in most public draft rankings. He tends to range between second and sixth on these lists, suggesting that there’s still a good amount of confidence that he can be a really strong player in the future.

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