Welcome to our annual data-driven analysis of the top prospects in the 2026 NHL Draft. We’re digging deep, giving you a watchlist of 200 first-time eligible and 100 re-entry skaters to follow as the draft approaches.

What is the data-only watchlist?

The watchlist is not a traditional scouting assessment of prospects. Instead, as in years past, we built our watchlist using public, quantifiable data only. Think of it as a supplement to the scouting and analytical work on prospects being published by other sources like Elite Prospects or NHL Central Scouting.

The watchlist can be revealing in its areas of agreement or disagreement with the work of traditional scouting services. But it is not a replacement for the valuable work of scouts. There may be reasons to prefer a prospect listed lower on the watchlist over one listed higher. Indeed, I have formed some of my own subjective preferences. I may have the opportunity to return to some of those assessments as the draft season progresses, but those preferences are not reflected here.

This is a skater-only list for now—though it remains a priority to revisit and develop a satisfactory method to integrate goalies.

The “Data Score” approach

What does our data-only analysis involve? As I have done in years past when looking at NHL Draft prospects (or NHL-affiliated prospects), I have organized this player list by “Data Score”—a rough metric we came up with here at Sound Of Hockey. This season’s approach includes new steps that I believe will be valuable in helping identify top players.

Data Score begins with the bedrock of an NHL equivalency (“NHLe”). NHLe is a method for comparing the scoring proficiency of players in the various professional and junior leagues across the globe. I used Thibaud Chatel’s model, which is the most up-to-date public research in the area. Check out Chatel’s Substack for an in-depth discussion of NHLe. For this project, I used Chatel’s newest model, which has been updated to account for 2025-26 season data.

From there, as before, I make adjustments based on factors known to be linked to prospect success rates: (1) position, (2) height, (3) age, and (4) re-draft status. I also make a modest upward adjustment to the NHLe for low-scoring draft-eligible players playing in high-level professional leagues. (This is based on public research by Chace McCallum that was taken down when he started working for an NHL team.)

What’s new this year? In contrast with years past, when I looked at only a one-year sample to create this list, this time I applied this NHLe to multiple years of scoring data for these prospects—specifically the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. More recent play is given more weight. I believe this is an important upgrade to the approach.

I also adjusted the underlying point-rate totals used in the process to give less weight to assists relative to goals. This is based on public research suggesting goal scoring is more predictive of future point production than assist totals, even primary assists.

The full watchlist, which will be made available to Sound Of Hockey Patreon members shortly, covers approximately 12,000 skaters.

The 2026 NHL Draft watchlist

Most notable to me is just how much agreement you can find between scouting assessments and “Data Score.” If I presented the top 32 as a first-round scouting rank, it would raise questions—but perhaps not as many as you might think.

Beyond that, the most notable thing is that Data Score sees two elite players at the top of the 2026 NHL Draft: Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg. Despite being older draft-eligible prospects with only adequate height, their scoring production puts them in a different tier.

They arrived at this tier in two different ways, though. Gavin McKenna reached an elite level earlier (2.3 points per CHL game in 2024-25) and essentially maintained his production against elevated NCAA competition (1.4 points per NCAA game in 2025-26). Ivar Stenberg was quite good in the lower junior leagues in 2024-25, but his arrow pointed up in a big way in his draft season when he posted almost 0.8 points per game in the SHL. This is the third-most ever by a draft-eligible SHL prospect and the best single statistical season in the two-year sample I assembled for this project.

There is a bit of a gap after the top two prospects. Players like Porter Martone or Jake O’Brien from the 2025 NHL Draft would have been clear-cut second-tier prospects if they were eligible this season. Instead, defensemen Chase Reid and Carson Carels are the next players on the list. In an average-or-better draft, Reid and Carels may be closer to top-10 prospects than top-five candidates, but both bring strong offensive profiles that project to first-pair NHL futures.

Keep an eye on Nikita Klepov and J.P. Hurlbert as two forwards who could be selected higher than we might think—in the mold of Ben Kindel in the 2025 NHL Draft. As was the case with Kindel, it only takes one team to make a bet on their strong junior scoring profiles.

Wyatt Cullen and Ethan Belchetz are two bigger forwards who could make a push toward the top of the 2026 NHL Draft as well. They bring strong physical traits and “good-enough” data to forge a top-10 consensus in a draft room.

At the other end of the spectrum, if there is one player in the top 10 of the watchlist I’d suspect will linger toward the end of Round 1 (or later), it would be Ryan Roobroeck. Despite being strong overall, his equivalency is actually trending in the wrong direction while scouts question his engagement and consistency.

Evan Jardine is a USHL forward who likely won’t be drafted until the later rounds, but will probably score as a college player next season, and everyone will question how he slipped through the cracks. (In other words, Jardine could be this year’s version of Ethan Wyttenbach, who was No. 11 on last year’s watchlist but lingered until pick No. 144 in the 2025 NHL Draft before going on to post huge scoring numbers in college.)

Undersized, offense-first defensemen top the re-draft pool. Jonas Woo, Tomas Galvas, and Oliwer Sjöström all have strong arguments to be late-round flyers. Everett Silvertip Matias Vanhanen (who is a very young re-draft player) has a strong chance to be one of the first re-entry candidates off the board.

Season trends relative to the preseason list

When comparing with our preseason list, we see significant consistency at the top. 18 of the top 32 players on our final list were also ranked within the top 32 before the season began. Almost all the rest were listed in the second- to third-round range: 31 of the 32 skaters ranked within the top 82 of our preseason list. Only QMJHL blueliner Tommy Bleyl played himself into first-round consideration from a more obscure preseason position.

We did see a few players experience significant falls from our preseason list, however, due to underwhelming draft seasons. Olivers Murnieks is a notable example. He stood at No. 7 on our preseason list but fell to No. 86 among first-eligible skaters on our final list.

Revisiting the 2025 NHL Draft data-only watchlist

How much can you learn about likely draft projection from a player’s placement on the watchlist? As you might expect, it’s not perfect. There are players that scouts “like” (or “dislike”) for reasons other than the quantifiable factors included in Data Score.

That said, it is again remarkable how much you can predict based on public data alone. Looking back at the top 32 first-time eligible prospects on our 2025 data-only watchlist, 23 went in the first round, five more went in the second or third round, and all 32 were drafted.

Other watchlist takeaways and local connections

The run of top prospects playing junior hockey in the Pacific Northwest has not broken yet. No. 33-ranked Mathis Preston played for the Spokane Chiefs and Vancouver Giants this season. No. 52-ranked Chase Harrington played for the Chiefs as well. No. 12-ranked defenseman Ryan Lin played for the Giants, and No. 3-ranked defenseman Carson Carels played for the Prince George Cougars. Everett’s Vanhanen may be the first Puget Sound-area player selected.

Looking at the league landscape, seven of our top-32 first-time eligible prospects played their draft seasons in the OHL, the most of any league. The WHL and USHL were tied for second with six such prospects each. After that, the NCAA had four players, and the QMJHL had three.

* * *

Do you have any questions? Reach out to us in the comments below or on Twitter/X @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey or on BlueSky at @deepseahockey or @soundofhockey.com.

Header photo of J.P. Hurlbert taken by Evan Morud, courtesy of the Everett Silvertips.