Why the Vancouver Canucks have three 'first-round' draft picks right now
The Vancouver Canucks losing streak is weighing heavily on the players.
“It sucks…I hate losing,” an exasperated Elias Pettersson said following the Canucks eighth straight loss on Tuesday night to the Ottawa Senators.
However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The Canucks are poised to have their highest draft pick since the 1998-99 season. Of course, they had two of the top three picks in that draft, allowing them to snag the Sedin twins.
If the Canucks continued to hold down last place in the NHL standings, they would be guaranteed to land a top-three pick in this year’s draft. Old draft lottery rules meant teams could drop three spots in the order, which happened to the Canucks in both 2016 and 2017. Those rules changed before the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.
Aside from their potential top-three pick, the Canucks also hold a first-round selection courtesy of the Minnesota Wild.
But what about the third one?
In a normal year, each of the 32 teams is allotted one first-round pick. Regardless of trades, 32 players are selected before the second round begins.
That won’t be the case in 2026.
The Ottawa Senators are forfeiting their first-round pick in this year’s draft as a punishment for the Evgenii Dadonov trade debacle from nearly five years ago.
Ottawa failed to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s 10-team no-trade list to the Vegas Golden Knights after trading him there in July 2021. The Golden Knights then traded Dadonov to the Anaheim Ducks at the 2022 trade deadline, but the deal was nullified when they learned that the Ducks were on his no-trade list.
Smooth move, Sens.
Ottawa’s punishment was forfeiting a first-round pick in either 2024, 2025, or 2026. Since they chose to keep their first-rounders the last two years, they were forced to give up their first-rounder in this year’s draft.
Since Ottawa is forfeiting a pick, and the Canucks are the worst team in the NHL, that means Vancouver is slated to select the 32nd player in the upcoming draft.
So, there you go. For the first time in franchise history, the Canucks will have three first-round picks.
Sort of.
The NHL doesn’t just bump everyone up a spot in the draft. The last time a team had to forfeit a first-round pick was back in 2021, when the Arizona Coyotes gave up the 11th overall pick for violating the league’s combine testing policy.
Don’t feel too bad for the Yotes, as the Canucks generously offered up the ninth overall pick in that draft in exchange for Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland. How’s Dylan Guenther doing, by the way?
Even though the Canucks will select the 32nd player in the upcoming draft, if they hold down last place, they won’t select that player until the top of the second round on day 2 of the draft. It will technically be the 33rd overall pick.
Well, isn’t that just Canucks luck? Robbed of the opportunity to have three first-round picks for the first time in franchise history.
Perhaps the wilder anecdote for the Canucks in the upcoming draft is that, in the last 53 years, there’s only one other instance where Vancouver has held three draft picks within the top-32.
That was back in the 1990 NHL Draft, when they selected Petr Nedved (2nd overall), Shawn Antoski (18th overall) and Jiri Slegr (23rd overall).
Of course, they were aided by the fact that only 21 NHL teams existed in 1990.
The bigger question for this Canucks team is, can they acquire more top picks before the draft in June?