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2026 NHL Draft Thread

jeffbear

jeffbear

Mod Squad
Staff member
As of time of posting, this is the draft order for the 1st round …

1. Toronto
2. San Jose
3. Vancouver
4. Buffalo
5. NY Rangers
6. Calgary
7. Seattle
8. Winnipeg
9. San Jose
10. Nashville
11. St Louis
12. New Jersey
13. NY Islanders
14. Columbus
15. St Louis
16. St Louis
17. Los Angeles
18. Washington
19. Utah
20. Buffalo
21. Philadelphia
22. Pittsburgh
23. Boston
24. Vancouver
25. Ottawa
26. NY Rangers
27. San Jose
28. Montreal
29. St Louis
30. Calgary
31. Carolina
32. Ottawa
 
Notes:

- Round 1 will be available on ESPN from 7pm to 10pm (or when it ends). The Sabres are hosting at Key Bank Center

- it seems like every single team with multiple picks wants to trade them for NHL talent, which means the trade market is all sorts of weird right now.

- the one team that cannot trade a specific pick is Ottawa. They are not allowed to move the 32nd pick which was their penalty for their role in a failed trade involving Yvgeni Dadonov. Originally they forfeited their 1st round pick and were awarded the last pick in the first round after an appeal.

- this draft class was originally thought to be the strongest in almost a decade but as lost much of its shine over time. Instead, it’s now viewed as a draft pool with a very thin high end, but a very deep secondary layer. It also features an unusually deep group of defensemen in that second tier.

- for right now, Vegas still doesn’t have their 2nd round pick which was removed as a penalty for then coach John Tortorella skipping a playoff press conference. It’s widely speculated that Vegas will eventually get their pick back, but since it hasn’t happened yet … maybe not.
 
Also … please enjoy all the heartfelt congratulations for the Stanley Cup win from the podium. Also also, please rank them by sincerity for me, because tonight I begin several days of funeral service duty and will likely be unable to watch
 
If we make our 1st round pick (which we probably won't), we should be thanking everyone for the congratulations and also giving out heartfelt thank yous to:

* The Leafs for allowing us to buy their 1st round pick (Seth Jarvis) in return for dumping Patrick Marleau's contract
* Chicago for be so willing to pretty much give us Taylor Hall
* All teams for allowing Jackson Blake and Jaccob Slavin to drop to the 4th round
* The NY Rangers for being willing to trade us sucky Dman K'Andre Miller
* Dallas for trading us Stankoven and all of those draft picks for the malcontent pouting sandbagger
* Boston and Florida for not locking Bussi into an NHL backup role

Sincerely, thank you all!
 
cmaleski2 said:
If we make 1st round pick (which we probably won't), we should be thanking everyone for the congratulations and also giving out heartfelt thank yous to:

* The Leafs for allowing us to buy their 1st round pick (Seth Jarvis) in return for dumping Patrick Marleau's contract
* Chicago for be so willing to pretty much give us Taylor Hall
* All teams for allowing Jackson Blake and Jaccob Slavin to drop to the 4th round
* The NY Rangers for being willing to trade us sucky Dman K'Andre Miller
* Dallas for trading us Stankoven and all of those draft picks for the malcontent pouting sandbagger

Sincerely, thank you all!
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We wouldn't be here without the stupidity of.....................Insert Your GM Here ________________________
 
We are still currently sitting on just the 4 picks in this draft (1st round, 4th round, two 6th round).

I'm predicting that the number of Russians we will end up drafting in this 2026 draft when all is said and done is 5.
 
cmaleski2 said:
We are still currently sitting on just the 4 picks in this draft (1st round, 4th round, two 6th round).

I'm predicting that the number of Russians we will end up drafting in this 2026 draft when all is said and done is 5.
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I'd be OK ending this particular experiment in trying to be smarter than the other guys. Have we really uncovered any gems in the Russkie juniors yet? Nikishin doesn't count as he was established in the KHL already, and Ryabkin last year was playing in Muskegon, neither were hiding under a rock.
 
StormChaserBH said:
I'd be OK ending this particular experiment in trying to be smarter than the other guys. Have we really uncovered any gems in the Russkie juniors yet? Nikishin doesn't count as he was established in the KHL already, and Ryabkin last year was playing in Muskegon, neither were hiding under a rock.
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Kochetkov is the only one that comes to mind. But he didn’t come from Juniors, he played 18 games in the VHL and 2 games in the KHL in his draft year.
 
Kochetkov maybe?

Really it seems that we just hit on Russians picked via the draft picks we got from the Jeff Skinner trade. That is another candidate for the 1st pick thank you list..."thank you Buffalo for helping us rid ourselves of Jeff Skinner and giving us picks in return that turned into Kochetkov and Nikishin".

Meanwhile Buffalo is carrying cap hits of $6.444 million this coming season and 3 more at $2.444 million after that from the Skinner buyout. Buffalo fans were so giddy about that trade and quick to question how the Canes could be so stupid to 'give Skinner away'. How did that work out for you in the end Sabres fans?
 
cmaleski2 said:
Kochetkov maybe?

Really it seems that we just hit on Russians picked via the draft picks we got from the Jeff Skinner trade. That is another candidate for the 1st pick thank you list..."thank you Buffalo for helping us rid ourselves of Jeff Skinner and giving us picks in return that turned into Kochetkov and Nikishin".

Meanwhile Buffalo is carrying cap hits of $6.444 million this coming season and 3 more at $2.444 million after that from the Skinner buyout. Buffalo fans were so giddy about that trade and quick to question how the Canes could be so stupid to 'give Skinner away'. How did that work out for you in the end Sabres fans?
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And Cliff Pu. Who was sent to Springfield for future considerations which became Tomas Jurco, who helped the Checkers win the 2019 Calder Cup.
 
cmaleski2 said:
Kochetkov maybe?

Really it seems that we just hit on Russians picked via the draft picks we got from the Jeff Skinner trade. That is another candidate for the 1st pick thank you list..."thank you Buffalo for helping us rid ourselves of Jeff Skinner and giving us picks in return that turned into Kochetkov and Nikishin".

Meanwhile Buffalo is carrying cap hits of $6.444 million this coming season and 3 more at $2.444 million after that from the Skinner buyout. Buffalo fans were so giddy about that trade and quick to question how the Canes could be so stupid to 'give Skinner away'. How did that work out for you in the end Sabres fans?
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I'm willing to bet the house that getting rid of Skinner for nothing was all Brindy's idea. He saw that Skinner didn't really care about winning the way that other guys like Aho wanted.
 
NoMich said:
I'm willing to bet the house that getting rid of Skinner for nothing was all Brindy's idea. He saw that Skinner didn't really care about winning the way that other guys like Aho wanted.
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RBA was promoted on May 8. Skinner was traded on August 2. Coincidence? I think not.
 
Three guys got shipped out in very short order once Brind’Amour, Waddell and Tulsky were making the personnel decisions … Skinner, Lindholm, Hanifin. Skinner got literally thrown out for nothing because he’s selfish to his core and wasn’t going to do the work, but those other two were promptly dumped on Calgary for Dougie and the rights to Fox, whom nobody really thought would sign here anyway. Remember how much crap the Canes took in the media for giving up “so much” to get a guy with “questionable character?” Nah. Hanifin has been on some winners, but also is still the guy who flat out gave up on that puck that Stankoven stole from him (twice) to set up Blake for the goal that really sent Vegas home. He made a couple of similarly gutless plays for the US in the Gold medal game they lost in 4 Nations. Lindy had a couple of good seasons in Calgary but it turned out that he was just riding on the coattails of Gaudrau and M Tkachuk likve everybody else on those Flames teams. Since then he’s most famous for being consistently over paid. Meanwhile, Dougie was a key part of jump starting Carolina’s early resurgence and we got a decent pick for Fox.

Tulsky has a really, really good memory. There’s a reason he was taking jabs at other GMs during the Cup celebrations.
 
jeffbear said:
Three guys got shipped out in very short order once Brind’Amour, Waddell and Tulsky were making the personnel decisions … Skinner, Lindholm, Hanifin. Skinner got literally thrown out for nothing because he’s selfish to his core and wasn’t going to do the work, but those other two were promptly dumped on Calgary for Dougie and the rights to Fox, whom nobody really thought would sign here anyway. Remember how much crap the Canes took in the media for giving up “so much” to get a guy with “questionable character?” Nah. Hanifin has been on some winners, but also is still the guy who flat out gave up on that puck that Stankoven stole from him (twice) to set up Blake for the goal that really sent Vegas home. He made a couple of similarly gutless plays for the US in the Gold medal game they lost in 4 Nations. Lindy had a couple of good seasons in Calgary but it turned out that he was just riding on the coattails of Gaudrau and M Tkachuk likve everybody else on those Flames teams. Since then he’s most famous for being consistently over paid. Meanwhile, Dougie was a key part of jump starting Carolina’s early resurgence and we got a decent pick for Fox.

Tulsky has a really, really good memory. There’s a reason he was taking jabs at other GMs during the Cup celebrations.
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We got Micheal Ferland, the Concussion Kid, in the trade with Calgary too. He came within a point of his career high but missed 11 regular season games and only played in 7 of the 15 playoff games, missing the last 4 games of the Caps series and all of the Islanders series.
 
andyt said:
We got Micheal Ferland, the Concussion Kid, in the trade with Calgary too. He came within a point of his career high but missed 11 regular season games and only played in 7 of the 15 playoff games, missing the last 4 games of the Caps series and all of the Islanders series.
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I will always love Dougie for the tap on Nelson's head.
 
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