{"id":607654,"date":"2026-06-26T12:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/607654\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:51:09","slug":"2026-nhl-mock-draft-final-experts-picks-ahead-of-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/607654\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NHL mock draft: Final experts’ picks ahead of real thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

2026 NHL mock draft: Final experts’ picks ahead of real thing<\/p>\n

June 26, 2026, 8:15 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

It’s finally here: The 2026 NHL Draft, with some big names from college and around the world learning this weekend where they’ll land in the first round (on Friday night) and in Rounds 2 through 7 (on Saturday).<\/p>\n

This means the end of mock draft season, in which most folks think Gavin McKenna is going No. 1 overall. And for that, we have the exercise below: As usual, we took all the NHL mock drafts and smushed them into a “consensus” draft, which paints a picture on where the experts think the stars of tomorrow will land.<\/p>\n

Here’s a list of the mock drafts we used:<\/p>\n

Average: 1.0<\/p>\n

2. San Jose Sharks<\/a>: LW\/RW Ivar Stenberg, Frolunda<\/p>\n

Average: 2.0<\/p>\n

Average: 3.6<\/p>\n

4. Buffalo Sabres<\/a>: D Chase Reid, Sault Ste. Marie<\/p>\n

Average: 4.4<\/p>\n

5. New York Rangers<\/a>: D Carson Carels, Prince George<\/p>\n

Average: 5.4<\/p>\n

6. Calgary Flames<\/a>: F Viggo Bjorck, Djugardens IF<\/p>\n

Average: 6.4<\/p>\n

7. Seattle Kraken: D Alberts Smits, Jukurit<\/p>\n

Average: 7.0<\/p>\n

8. Winnipeg Jets<\/a>: D Keaton Verhoeff, North Dakota<\/p>\n

Average: 7.8<\/p>\n

9. San Jose Sharks: D Daxon Rudolph, Prince Albert<\/p>\n

Average: 8.2<\/p>\n

10. Nashville Predators: LW Wyatt Cullen, USNTDP<\/p>\n

Average: 10.2<\/p>\n

Average: 11.6<\/p>\n

12. New Jersey Devils<\/a>: C Tynan Lawrence, Boston University<\/p>\n

Average: 12.0<\/p>\n

13. New York Islanders: LW Ethan Belchetz, Windsor<\/p>\n

Average: 12.8<\/p>\n

Average: 14.0<\/p>\n

15. St. Louis Blues: C Alexander Command, Orebro<\/p>\n

Average: 16.8<\/p>\n

16. St. Louis Blues: LW Oscar Hemming, Boston College<\/p>\n

Average: 17.4<\/p>\n

17. Los Angeles Kings: LW Adam Novotny, Peterborough<\/p>\n

Average: 18.4<\/p>\n

18. Washington Capitals: C Oliver Suvanto, Tappara<\/p>\n

Average: 18.6<\/p>\n

19. Utah Mammoth: C Ilia Morozov, Miami University<\/p>\n

Average: 20.4<\/p>\n

20. Buffalo Sabres: RW Nikita Klepov, Saginaw<\/p>\n

Average: 21.4<\/p>\n

21. Philadelphia Flyers: LW JP Hurlbert, Kamloops<\/p>\n

Average: 21.4<\/p>\n

Average: 21.8<\/p>\n

23. Boston Bruins<\/a>: W Elton Hermansson, MoDo<\/p>\n

Average: 24.0<\/p>\n

24. Vancouver Canucks: RW Mathis Preston, Vancouver<\/p>\n

Average: 24.2<\/p>\n

25. Ottawa Senators<\/a>: D Maksim Sokolovski, London<\/p>\n

Average: 25.6<\/p>\n

26. New York Rangers: D Tommy Bleyl, Moncton<\/p>\n

Average: 25.6<\/p>\n

27. San Jose Sharks: RW Liam Ruck, Medicine Hat<\/p>\n

Average: 26.6<\/p>\n

Average: 28.8<\/p>\n

29. St. Louis Blues: C Brooks Rogowski, Oshawa<\/p>\n

Average: 29.0<\/p>\n

30. Calgary Flames: D Xavier Villenuve, Blainville-Boisbriand<\/p>\n

Average: 29.4<\/p>\n

Average: 30.0<\/p>\n

32. Ottawa Senators: RW Gleb Pugachyov, Nizhny Novgorod<\/p>\n

Average: 31.0<\/p>\n

If you purchase through our links, the USA Today Network may earn a commission. Prices were accurate at the time of publication but may change.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 ftw.usatoday.com. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 NHL mock draft: Final experts’ picks ahead of real thing June 26, 2026, 8:15 a.m. ET It’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5119],"tags":[50358,5,2409,231,5281,4,2410,63784,9492,50438,50431,50393,50374,53401,50372,53402,50491,50432,53652,50364,50616,50445,50375,50825,50382,50398,50381,50433,50392,50365,50543,50642,50396,50376,50361],"class_list":["post-607654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nashville-predators","tag-accessfree","tag-hockey","tag-nashville","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nashvillepredators","tag-nhl","tag-predators","tag-sourcefor-the-win","tag-sstssportsnhl","tag-sstsnnhl","tag-tagboston-bruins","tag-tagbuffalo-sabres","tag-tagcalgary-flames","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcarolina-hurricanes","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagcolumbus-blue-jackets","tag-tagespn-inc","tag-tagfantasy-sports","tag-taghockey","tag-tagmontreal-canadiens","tag-tagnew-jersey-devils","tag-tagnew-york-rangers","tag-tagnhl-entry-draft","tag-tagottawa-senators","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpittsburgh-penguins","tag-tagsan-jose-sharks","tag-tagsport-scores-statistics","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagst-louis-blues","tag-tagtoronto-maple-leafs","tag-tagvancouver-canucks","tag-tagwinnipeg-jets","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}