Ronning's Ghost sort of predicted my response (open to it, but not outside the top 9), and your response wasn't crazy there (you can expand a bit because there's going to be the team that is going to be looking more at best case scenario guys outside that group (Lawrence, Cullen, Belchez) -- guys that if they hit could very well end up in the top 3 of the draft when all is said and done.Mëds wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2026 11:33 am For the sake of other derailing in response to my own bias, I'll say this: If neither of those guys are available to us at 3, I'm very much in favour of trading down.....especially if it includes a 1st rounder from next year's draft. My rationale for this goes to what you mention about this year's draft being deeper in terms of higher floors. We aren't likely going to get anyone, outside of those top-2 guys, who burst through the ceiling, but there's a very good chance we grab players who are in that outer core category 4 years from now.
If you can package the 3 O/A with something that returns a top-20 pick this year AND a 1st rounder next year that could somewhat reasonably land in the top-20 (if not low lottery odds), I think you role that dice based on the projection of the 2027 draft class.
But this isn't a trade I am seeking if I am the Canucks. This is a trade I would listen to if a team is approaching me. And they are going to approach me if they see a meaningful gap between what's at 3 and what's wherever they are or whoever else they might approach to trade up. And they will *pay* for it -- that's why they are asking. Because they see a meaningful drop off if they can't get that guy. And because they are asking, I've started this negotiation with an advantage.
If the team approaching a UWSaint-led Canucks were a bubble/Wild Card team, with the 13-20 pick this year, offering their first and next years first, I wouldn't consider accepting it and its on the margin of "worth my time to see what else is there". The reason is that once you get to that range of this years draft class, you have materially dropped your chances of getting a core player -- and that's the whole purpose of the draft. And you aren't securing yourself good odds of getting a good-odds probability of getting a core player with their pick next year. Unless you know that bubble team is entering its rebuild and shedding everywhere, chances are, they are going to be bubbly again. And while every draft has a different distribution of "tiers," generally speaking there are three or more tiers in the top 10-12 picks and the draft flattens considerably after that point, with each successive tier including more players, and all players having notable gaps between where they are and where they need to be, and varying preferences of picking teams ranging from upside to projectability.
I don't think people fully appreciate how much a difference there is typically between top 5 picks to top 10 picks to top 20 picks to what comes after. They might all be in the first round, but first round picks are not created equally, or anything close to it. We ought to have learned that from the Schroeders and Jensens and Shinkauks and Whites. There was a brief behind selecting each of those players (well, except White, that was really weird -- weirder still that they were able to convert him into a quality asset after his time at U of Minnesota was so underwhelming), but all of them had big gaps to overcome and none of them did. Every player selected around their draft position had big gaps to overcome, and only some did.
In math terms, if a guy between selected 5th has a 30% to develop into a core player, and a guy selected at 15 has a 15% chance, you don't increase your odds of getting a core player by selecting 2 guys at 15. Your odds drop 3%, though you gain a small chance (2%) that both players pop. The tier distribution and odds per tier change from year to year, but my basic point is that mid or late first round quantity does not make up for quality unless there are particular known distributions of talent in the draft that stack differently than the typical draft. Its kind of like golf -- you'll miss more than twice as many 6 footers as 3 footers, more than twice as many 12 footers as 6 footers, and unless you are a very good putter, every 20 footer you ever made was lucky; you probably make but a few every summer playing two or three times a week and being the kind of golfer who has numerous 20+ foot putts a round.....
Now in this draft, there is one team (the Blues) that have two top 15 picks (no top 10 picks), so you there's way more certainty in the always uncertain draft world as to what it would mean to trade a 3rd overall pick for picks 11 and 15. And that would neither be an unreasonable offer or one that I'd jump on. Because there's a chance that I'd miss entirely on the top 9.
This seems like a draft class where teams' lists are may vary quite a bit from one another, and also a strange season in which the first overall pick is by a team that isn't embracing a rebuild and the second pick is going to a team that's out of the rebuild and should very much be acting like a bubble team with momentum for more. Usually these teams are still in a rebuild or have been forced into it (which is where the Canucks, Blackhawks, Flames are and the Rangers might be (and should be)). This creates a couple of really interesting dynamics. First, the second pick is open for a team to move way up the draft with existing NHL talent. This includes the Canucks, who could make a pitch involving Hronek (if he waives) and the Wild's first for 2d overall. Second, there's a chance that the teams behind the Canucks in the top 10 may very well be interested in moving up just a little because they tier a guy available at 3 a significantly different than whoever they think is going to be at 5 or 6 or 7 or 8. I mean, I've heard that at least one team has Malhotra on the top of its list; others have Stenberg or Reid (I suspect most have McKenna); still more will have a different tier shelf. Now these trades are much more attractive to the Canucks if they've tiered their guys in a certain way. When it looked like Calgary's second #1 was going to be between 18-22 (had Vegas lost the first round), this would have been very attractive -- 3rd overall for 6th and 20th overall. With that originally Vegas' pick falling to 30 or 31, it is much less attractive because you fallen another tier. Still, on draft day, depending on how you've tiered your group, you might very well think you can get the near equivalent of your guy at 6 and add a late first and likely a couple of their seconds.
This draft is lined up for a lot of movement. But it won't happen. Because it rarely does. And GM's are rarely held accountable for the moves they didn't make on draft day but would have turned out well.
