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What the Data Says About the 2026 NHL Draft

by Austin - 0

I consider myself a hybrid scout. I lean pretty equally on tracking quantitative data points for players in each game I watch and on a qualitative approach of note-taking on a shift-by-shift basis.

For most players in the 2026 NHL Draft class, I tracked three games spaced throughout the season, roughly every two months, while also completing at least two additional live viewings. My original goal was three non-tracked viewings per player, but as the season progressed, I stopped spending time on players I knew would not make my final rankings. Beginning in April, I will start merging those two evaluation methods, allowing myself time to analyze the similarities and differences between the different methodologies as I build my final rankings.

The reason I approach scouting this way is simple: I believe the most complete player evaluation comes from understanding both the outcomes and the process that created them. Tracking data tells us what happened. Qualitative scouting helps answer why it happened. Sometimes those answers align perfectly. Gavin McKenna’s elite passing metrics, for example, are exactly what you would expect after watching his playmaking ability on tape. Other times, the picture is less clear. The Ruck brothers are a good example from this draft class. Their tracking data consistently paints them as highly effective players in the areas where they excel. Still, the visual evaluation raises legitimate questions about how well those strengths will translate as the competition level increases.

This season, I collected complete tracking data on 102 North American draft-eligible players. Because I do not track overage prospects, 74 of those players ultimately made my final rankings, while 28 were left off entirely. What follows is a baseline look at what the data says about the 2026 NHL Draft class.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are presented on a per-60-minute basis. For example, a player’s shot-attempt rate is the average number of shot attempts recorded across the tracked games, divided by their average even-strength ice time, and scaled to a 60-minute sample. The quantitative value is noted in parentheses after the player’s name.

Let’s start with the forwards:

High Volume Shooters (most shot attempts per 60 minutes)

  1. Beckett Hamilton (24.5)
  2. Chase Harrington (24.4)
  3. Maddox Dagenais (24.3)
  4. Ryan Roobroeck (23)
  5. Julien Maze (21)
  6. Cole Zurawski (20.8)
  7. Brooks Rogowski (20.6)
  8. Lars Steiner (20.485)
  9. Mathis Preston (20.481)
  10. Liam Ruck (20.47)

Who can shoot the most from dangerous areas when they’re on the ice (dangerous shot attempts per 60)

  1. Chase Harrington (21.4)
  2. Casey Mutryn (18.8)
  3. Liam Ruck (15.7)
  4. Julien Maze (14.5)
  5. Olivers Murnierks (14.1)
  6. Ty Meunier (14.06)
  7. Andrey Molgachev (13.82)
  8. Dylan Rozzi (13.8)
  9. Alexei Vlasov (13.7)
  10. Gavin McKenna (13.4)

The first list has a lot of players I ranked really high (plus Cole Zurawski). The second list is full of players who I imagine many casual fans are like, “Who TF is that?” So, how did they end up making the top 10? Time on ice is the answer. Over a three-game sample, players with limited even-strength minutes just needed a game or two where they went on a shooting tear to ramp up their per/60 stats. Going back to the introduction to his article, it’s why the qualitative viewings are so important. 

What do I deduce from these two stats? The first is that Chase Harrington’s name shocked me being at the top of both lists. Over the last decade, I’ve learned a lot and have tried to learn from my mistakes, but the hardest one for me to overcome is the anchoring bias I have towards early viewings. I didn’t like Harrington’s first viewing at all this year, and it took me a long time to reset and evaluate him as the player he’d grown into rather than the one he started the year as. He gets inside a lot to shoot, he was the focal point of his line after Preston left, and his skill grew into a projectable, NHL player. 

The second thing was that Julien Maze, for a player who is a tad over 5’8, is in the top 10 on both lists. Size matters, and size will be a big reason he may go undrafted, but the data shows a player willing to play on the inside and able to get his shot off. 

Lastly, McKenna is just outside the top 10 in shot volume and inside the top 10 for dangerous shot attempts. As a player who is one of the best passers in the draft, he was also able to get shots off at a great clip and get inside to take them. 

Some random notes: 

  • There are a lot of competitive issues with Roobroeck from watching tape, and you can see them in the data here. A big, power-forward who is exclusively shooting from the perimeter points to that.
  • Preston is top 10 in shot volume, but 33rd in dangerous shot attempts. I love the player, but he’s going to have to play inside more to get his shot off.

The Draft’s Playmakers 

Who’s facilitating the most that I ranked? (Most passing attempts per/60)

  1. Gavin McKenna (121 PA/per 60)
  2. Markus Ruck (104)
  3. Liam Ruck (103.9)
  4. Alex Mclean (102.6)
  5. Noah Kosick (93.1)
  6. Tyus Sparks (91.4)
  7. Victor Plante (87.3)
  8. Mathis Preston (84.3)
  9. JP Hurlbert (82.6)
  10. Chase Harrington (82.4)

Who’s sending pucks to dangerous areas the most? (Dangerous pass attempts/60)

  1. Gavin McKenna (25.8)
  2. Jaxon Cover (25.2)
  3. Markus Ruck (24.6)
  4. Caleb Malhotra (20.6)
  5. JP Hurlbert (18.6)
  6. Olivers Murnieks (17)
  7. Nolan Stewart (16.88)
  8. Mathis Preston (16.87)
  9. Tyus Sparks (15.89)
  10. Liam Ruck (15.75)

Playmaker’s Thought Process (>20% of all passes are to dangerous areas of the offensive zone)

  1. Jaxon Cover (30%)
  2. Caleb Malhotra (28%)
  3. Adam Novotny (23.3%)
  4. Olivers Murnierks (22.6%)
  5. JP Hurlbert (22.5%)
  6. Nolan Stewart (21.8%)
  7. Wyatt Cullen (21.4%)
  8. Gavin McKenna (21.3%)
  9. Markus Ruck (20.8%)
  10. Tynan Lawrence (20.8%)
  11. Rowan Henderson (20.4%)
  12. Mathis Preston (20%)

There is a lot to break down here, but I want to start with a 10,000-foot view of the data and explain why I combine these three stats. The volume stat for pass attempts usually correlates with offensive transition involvement. The puck finds their stick a lot during their shifts, and they are looking to facilitate play. The volume of dangerous pass attempts stat is directly tied to how often they are looking to make plays into scoring areas in the offensive zone. The percentage of passes into dangerous areas is more subjective, but over the years, it has highlighted players with the right thought processes to create scoring chances. So, in short, this data shows:

  1. Who facilitates play 
  2. Who creates scoring chances
  3. Who is looking to create scoring chances 

Some thoughts on the players in these datasets:

  • First, I want to talk about who’s not in the dataset: the USNTDP players. It’s been this way for the past few years, and here’s my theory: a lot of the games I track are against college teams, and they haven’t played well against them the past two years. Thus, the volume is down because the opportunity to accumulate scoring chances is down. Wyatt Cullen showing up in the last dataset doesn’t shock me at all, because if you watched the U18S, you know he’s a phenomenal playmaker.
  • Liam Ruck shows up positively in these three datasets, but he only completes 60% of his passes. I will probably spend my offseason creating a new metric that combines the volume per/60 and completion percentage to see if that shows anything
  • I want to give Alex Mclean a shoutout here. He’s not guaranteed to hear his name called during the 2026 draft, mostly due to skating concerns, but my goodness, is he nifty with the puck on his stick.
  • JP Hurlbert being in the top 10 for volume stats doesn’t shock me. You watch a game between Kamloops and Hurlbert, and Hurlbert seems to have the puck for most of the shift. Like Liam Ruck, his completion percentage is poor. If that ticks up, my goodness, will he put up points in the NCAA?
  • Jaxon Cover doesn’t touch the puck a ton in transition, but if he gets it in the offensive zone, he’s looking straight to the scoring areas. Ditto for Caleb Malhotra. 
  • I have been baffled by the fact that Tyus Sparks hasn’t ended up on many people’s mid-to-late-round boards. A power-forward who has good mental processing of being a playmaker? Sign me up.

Who’s driving the bus for their line? (offensive transition involvement %)

  1. JP Hurlbert (59.3%)
  2. Julien Maze (56.5%)
  3. Adam Novotny (53.4%)
  4. Mathis Preston (52.4%)
  5. Noah Kosick (51.7%)
  6. Alex Mclean (50.8%)
  7. Gavin McKenna (49.4%)
  8. Tyus Sparks (49.2%)
  9. Lars Steiner/Jack Hextall (47.5%)

Other players over 40% offensive transition

  1. Victor Plante
  2. Oliver Murnierks
  3. Rowan Henderson
  4. Ryan Roobroeck
  5. Maddox Dagenais
  6. Tynan Lawrence
  • 40% is the benchmark I use to decide which role a player will play in transition. If you’re above that mark and efficient in offensive transition, you’re going to be ranked pretty high by me because you understand how to move the puck up the ice, and you do it at a high volume. 
  • Conversely, if you do it a lot and aren’t efficient, there are some red flags. Players that this applies to: Ryan Roobroeck, Adam Novotny, Tyus Sparks, and Lars Steiner. Each has its own issues. Roobroeck struggles getting off the blocks and can’t enter the zone with control because defenders are on him. Novotny and Sparks struggle to carry the puck in and don’t process passing lanes quickly enough, and will defer to dump-and-chase. Lars Steiner is just a hilarious unicorn who is going to try to do it himself every time, and, well, that’s not how you become efficient in transition.
  • I think these data points should be referenced when talking about why a team can justify reaching for centers Jack Hextall and Tynan Lawrence. Neither has game-breaking skill, but both are so good at mentally processing defensive structures and facilitating controlled offensive play from the defensive zone into the offensive zone.

Best Defensive Players in the Draft (Defensive Transition success rate individually)

  1. Quinn McKenzie (75%)
  2. Beckham Edwards (68.7%)
  3. Jordan Duguay (66.67%)
  4. Noah Kosick (64.7%)
  5. Ryan Brown (62.5%)
  6. Braidy Wassilyn (62.4%)
  7. Beckett Hamilton (61.9%)
  8. Jack Hextall (60.6%)
  9. Tynan Lawrence (60%)
  10. Maddox Dagenais (59.2%)
  11. Ilia Morozov (58.82%)
  • The first seven players you will find in the mid-late rounds of my draft rankings, and this is exactly why. While they all have their question marks offensively, they are monsters defensively and can project into defensive roles in the NHL. 
  • Hextall, Lawrence, and Morozov are players I consistently say have the highest floors in the draft class, and you can see why here. I touched on Hextall and Lawrence above, but you can see that the floor of a shut-down center that can cause turnovers and then move the puck up the ice is very easy to project. Morozov being this effective in the NCAA shows just how mature his game is for a 17-year-old playing college hockey. 

Best Corsi Players in the Dataset 

  1. Jaxon Cover (73.3%)
  2. Riley Boychuck (70.8%)
  3. Maddox Dagenais (68.3%)
  4. Jordan Duguay (67.9%)
  5. Tynan Lawrence (67.6%)
  6. Liam Ruck (67%)
  7. Nolan Stewart (65.4%)
  8. Ethan Garden (63.4%)
  9. Quinn McKenzie (62.5%)
  10. Brooks Rogowski (60.9%)

Worst Corsi Players in the Dataset

  1. Benjamin Oliver (28.2%)
  2. Enzo Lottin (31.6%)
  3. Adam Novotny (31.6%)
  4. Alexei Vlasov (37.8%)
  5. Adam Levac (40%)
  6. Cameron Kuzma (40.7%)
  7. Ryan Roobroeck (41.7%)
  8. Victor Plante (42.9%)
  9. Korney Korneyev (43.5%)
  10. Cole Zurawski (43.6%)
  • These aren’t data points that give you clear conclusions, so you have to consume this data with context. Liam Ruck and Riley Boychuck played on the most dominant teams in the WHL. Victor Plante played against college players in all the games tracked, and honestly, most of the USNTDP would’ve been on this list, but they also had one USHL game in their dataset.
  • I think the tape and the data line up positively for Cover, Boychuck, Dagenais, Duguay, Stewart, Garden, and McKenzie. I think all of those players are huge reasons why their team was able to drive play offensively and suppress chances defensively. 
  • I think Ruck’s line was just so dominant offensively, and he was predominantly playing with Pickford and Woo as his defensemen, so that he didn’t play a role in suppressing chances. I think Rogowski played a smaller defensive role than the data suggests.
  • Novotny and Roobroeck showing up negatively here tracks with them also being divisive prospects in general. Both have had defensive engagement issues, and it shows just how much that impacts their lines’ on-ice efficiency.
  • If I extended this just two more spots to include Yegor Shilov, you’d have all of the Victoriaville players I tracked in the bottom part of the Corsi (Vlasov, Korneyev, and Shilov). They were an atrociously bad defensive team

Defensemen

I still track multiple categories for defensemen, but I have moved heavily toward qualitative scouting rather than relying on tracking data. The reasons are plenty, but the two major ones are:

  • Defensive structure and role play a lot into the data points. Conservative, defensive structures help less-skilled defensemen with tracking data; aggressive defensive systems can lead to a cowboy-hockey type of data point; and the forwards that defensive players play with dictate a lot of the decision-making and offensive opportunities as well.
  • The biggest things I find that translate to offensive production for defensemen are: lateral agility at the blue line, activation in the offensive zone, and aggressiveness in joining rushes. I could track those stats, but they’re so easy to see on tape that I don’t.

I typically only track players when I want to see what their offensive/transition game is like and compare them with similar players. I don’t normally track players I define as two-way modern defensemen or defensive-defensemen because I’m looking at the traits of their defensive style, skating mechanics, and offensive transition exit decisions when ranking and projecting them. The exceptions to this are Hudson Lohse and Maksim Sokolovskii. For Lohse, it was because I knew I would be the only person to rank him, and I wanted to make sure his defensive and transition metrics matched the eye-test. I wrote Sokolovskii off by December, so when he started to get first-round buzz, I added him to the dataset to make sure I was confident about leaving him off.

That being said… let’s take a look at the data points. I tracked 16 defensemen with full datasets for the 2026 NHL draft. There were a total of 35 defensemen with tracked data, but for many of them, I knew what I was getting by the end of game two and didn’t complete the full three games.

Volume Shooters (shots per 60)

  1. Xavier Villeneuve (30.9)
  2. Hunter Aura (22.3)
  3. Brayden Klimpke (20)
  4. Daxon Rudolph (18.7)
  5. Carsen Carels (17.5)
  6. Chase Reid (17.2)
  7. Ryan Lin (15.4)

Defensemen who shoot from dangerous areas (Dangerous shots/60)

  1. Xavier Villeneuve (12.8)
  2. Ryan Lin (8.5)
  3. Bode Laylin (5.1)
  4. Chase Reid (4.8)
  5. Hunter Aura (4.7)
  6. Carsen Carels (3.5)
  7. Tommy Bleyl (3.2)
  • A couple of things stick out right away. First, Xavier Villeneuve is blowing the competition out of the water in terms of shot volume and quality of shots. Lin doesn’t like to shoot from the point and will move up in the zone to get his shots off. The same can be said for Bode Layin. 
  • Chase Reid’s raw data looks great in terms of volume, but when you put it up against his very high time-on-ice average, you see some red flags. His datapoints lean more towards a PP2 player than a PP1, though his skillset definitely translates into an offensive producer. 
  • Tommy Bleyl’s data throughout this explains the draft profile I wrote in my rankings. There is a lot to like about his qualitative scouting, but his volume metrics should be way higher given his skill set. 
  • Hunter Aura loves to shoot the puck. This doesn’t shock me at all.
  • I’d be cautious about pounding the table for Daxon Rudolph. He loves to rip point shots, but he rarely moves up into the offensive zone to get actual scoring looks.

Transition and Passing Metrics

Pass attempts per 60 minutes

  1. Chase Reid (122.6)
  2. Brayden Klimpke (120.11)
  3. Xavier Villeneuve (116.1)
  4. Hunter Aura (108.4)
  5. Tommy Bleyl (106.8)
  6. Rylan Singh (101.9)
  7. Hudson Lohse (96.2)

Dangerous Pass attempts per 60

  1. Xavier Villeneuve (16)
  2. Daxon Rudolph (7.3)
  3. Chase Reid (5.7)
  4. Carson Carels (4.7)
  5. Giorfos Pantelas (3.6)
  6. Brayden Klimpke (3.3)
  7. Rylan Singh (3.1)

Who’s heavily involved in offensive transition? (% of offensive transitions)

  1. Xavier Villeneuve (50%)
  2. Rylan Singh (35.1%)
  3. Chase Reid (33%)
  4. Ryan Lin (31.3%)
  5. Giorgos Pantelas (31.1%)
  6. Bode Laylin (30.6%)
  7. Hunter Aura (29.2%)

Who’s efficient at keeping possession in transition? (% of successful offensive transitions)

  1. Xavier Villeneuve (76.5%)
  2. Hudson Lohse (69%)
  3. Bode Laylin (67.2%)
  4. Ryan Lin (66.67%)
  5. Chase Reid (64.5%)
  6. Ben MacBeath (63.6%)
  7. Giorgos Pantelas (62.5%)

Who are the 5 worst at keeping possession?

  1. Maksim Sokolovskii (25%)
  2. Brayden Klimpke (32%)
  3. Landon Nycz (48.9%)
  4. Hunter Aura (52.5%)
  5. Rylan Singh (56.2%)
  • I don’t have Maksim Sokolovskii ranked, and I hope you can see why. He can’t transition the puck, so no matter how physical he is or how much people love his defensive zone work…he can’t get the puck out of the zone with control.
  • I hope this justifies my Hudson Lohse rank as well. He was really good in the defensive zone, and he was super efficient transitioning the puck out of the zone as well. I can 100% see a defensive-defenseman role for him if his skating continues to improve.
  • The gap between Villeneuve and all the other offensive defensemen is just ginormous. Reid and Lin look to be the next two offensive defensemen on the board, and Daxon Rudolph continues his roller coaster ride through the dataset, as he’s very good at looking to pass to dangerous areas but middling in transition efficiency and not involved that much either. Carels making an appearance in the top shooting and top dangerous pass attempts explains a lot of his offensive production, though his lack of involvement in transition also tracks with the qualitative viewings that he can go missing during stretches of games.
  • Klimpke, Aura, Singh, and Nycz all have their bright spots, but the transition numbers are why they are all bumped down on my board despite some interesting data points along the way.

Defensive Metrics

Best Transition Defenders (Defensive Transition success %)

  1. Giorgos Pantelas (81%)
  2. Brayden Klimpke (74.2%)
  3. Chase Reid (69.6%)
  4. Tommy Bleyl (69.2%)
  5. Rylan Singh (68%)
  6. Xavier Villeneuve (64.9%)
  7. Maksim Sokolovskii (64.3%)

Worst Transition Defenders 

  1. Hunter Aura (55.3%)
  2. Ryan Lin (59.5%)
  3. Hudson Lohse (60.6%)
  4. Bode Laylin (62%)
  5. Daxon Rudolph (62.5%)

Best at breaking up defensive cycles (average difference between cycles broken up vs continued)

  1. Daxon Rudolph (+2)
  2. Carson Carels (+1.33)
  3. Hudson Lohse/Maksim Sokolovskii/Chase Reid/Brayden Klimpke/Giorgos Pantelas (+1)

Worst at breaking up defensive cycles

  1. Tommy Bleyl (-2)
  2. Bode Laylin (-1)
  3. Hunter Aura (-.5)
  4. Rylan Singh (0)
  5. Ben MacBeath (0)

Best Corsi Percentage

  1. Hunter Aura (71.8%)
  2. Brayden Klimpke (69.7%)
  3. Xavier Villeneuve (63.5%)
  4. Chase Reid (60.9%)
  5. Hudson Lohse (60.3%)
  6. Daxon Rudolph (59%)
  7. Carson Carels (56.6%)

Worst Corsi Percentage

  1. Bode Laylin (45.7%)
  2. Ryan Lin (46.7%)
  3. Ben MacBeath (48.8%)
  4. Landon Nycz (50.6%)
  5. Tommy Bleyl (52.9%)
  • Transition defending correlates very closely with skating ability. Though Pantelas is an outlier for that statement. Many of the strongest transition defenders are very mobile and can keep tight gaps and cause turnovers at the blue lines. Conversely, most of the worst transition players aren’t great skaters, and Aura/Lin/Laylin lack size as well.
  • The in-zone cycle metrics are interesting, and you can see that size plays a big part in breaking up cycles. 
  • Nothing about the best Corsi percentages shocks me, though Aura/Klimpke are benefiting from the situation more than the rest are. 
  • Both Bleyl and Nycz are positive Corsi players, so I don’t take too much from them ending in the bottom five. Laylin and Lin were both in bad situations, but the hype around Ben MacBeath being a first- or early-second-round pick should be questioned more. There are tantalizing traits, but nothing in the dataset points to a player who will guarantee a spot in your NHL lineup.

For Funsies: How Does Xavier Villeneuve Rank Offensively Compared to Forwards?

Shot attempts/60: 1st

Dangerous Shot attempts/60: 18th

Pass attempts/60: 2nd

Dangerous pass attempts/60: 16th

% of passes going to dangerous areas: 45th

Offensive Involvement %: 7th

Just a ridiculous draft profile for Villeneuve. His averages in the raw data are the best I’ve ever seen from a defenseman, and here’s how they ranked against the forward group: 

Average shot attempts per game: 1st (by 3 shots!!)

Dangerous shot attempts per game: Tied for 3rd 

Dangerous pass attempts per game: Tied for 5th

Total offensive transitions per game: 3rd

Sleep on Villeneuve at your own peril.

Photo Credit: OIS/Joel Marklund-(USA) TODAY Sports

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