2026 NHL Draft Ranking: HockeyProspect.com Top 32, November

HockeyProspect.com Releases First 2026 NHL Draft Ranking of the Season

Our first look at the 2026 NHL Draft class has arrived. Our scouting staff has spent the early portion of the season tracking the prospects and today we’re releasing our initial Top 64. (Top 32 free to view)

At the top sits Keaton Verhoeff, a right shot 6’4′ d-man whose combination of shot, size and competitive edge has given him the nod at 1st overall on our first list. Keanton has a high ceiling and is a player a team can build their back end around.

Ivar Stenberg is a silky smooth, competitive, highly skilled winger having a fantastic season so far. He holds similar traits that McKenna holds, but we see him as a more complete player as of this ranking. Right behind him is Gavin McKenna, a highly skilled dynamic passer who enterted the season as the consensus number one. McKenna has struggled defensively and in the compete department and only had 4 even strength points as of our scout meetings last week, all factors which led to him losing our number one spot.

Despite barely playing so far this season, Tynan Lawrence held onto his 4th overall slot with a blend of skill and hockey sense that consistently shows up. Chase Reid, a defender from the Soo Greyhounds, who impressed after arriving in the OHL last season manages to get the 5th overall spot.

Alberts Smits, whose intelligent reads, compete and skating ability make him one of the more well rounded players in the class. Smits joined the aforementioned players in the battle for top 5 positioning, but sits 6th overall on this early list.

HP’s Mark Edwards mentioned a few names that might jump out.at people when viewing the list. “Obviously McKenna  jumps out because he isn’t number one. Gavin got a 4 compete rating (poor) from our USA scout. That probably best sums up our reasoning for dropping him. our Director of Scouting, Jerome Berube, mentioned Shane Wright in his draft year as a comparison because of Shane’s lack of compete that year. Regardless, McKenna still has elite playmaking ability and the flaws in his game are fixable.”

“Alberts Smits became a bit of a staff fave. He has some Schaefer-like qualities, in that he skates really well and wants (and has) the puck a lot. I’ll be clear: he’s not as talented offensively or quite as good of a skater as Schaefer though. Schaefer is special and at a different level, as NHL fans are seeing early and often this year.” said Edwards.

“Another guy we have ranked later than some might expect is Ryan Roobroeck. From my first viewing of him in his OHL Draft year playing a game in Jr. B, until my most recent viewing, he always leaves me wanting more. I get some flashbacks to watching Raphael Lavoie; he was another big guy that played a no-compete style. Ranking Lavoie 25th overall on our final list is in my top five rankings I wish I could go back and change. Roobroeck and Belchetz get mentioned to me in the same breath by some NHL team scouts… scouts compare their inconsistent compete. I see it with Belchetz sometimes, but he is far more competitive than Roobroeck in my opinion,” Edwards explained.

Edwards said he was looking forward to watching Tynan Lawrence this year, but injuries have squashed that so far. “He is a guy that I thought could really make some noise this year. I mentioned to an NHL team scout a few weeks ago that he is kind of like a ‘Celebrini Light,’ and then one of our scouts basically said the same thing in our meeting last week. I thought he might be the guy that could push McKenna, but we had to just leave him where we had him this summer, which was at his 4th-overall spot. Lots of time remaining before June, though…”

The top guys on our list— Keaton Verhoeff. “His shot jumps out for me,” Edwards said. “It’s hard and accurate, and he is incredibly good at getting it through…scoring from the back-end is so valuable. He competes really hard as well… skating isn’t high-end, but it will be fine and improve more as he gains more strength in his core. One of our scouts called him Eric Lindros on D… he called him a beast and a no-brainer to be ranked over McKenna. The weakness is turnovers trying to do too much at times… one NHL scout told me last week that Keaton and Jackson Smith lead the NCAA in turnovers.  It might be a wide open race to June for number one (overall) between a few of these top guys.”

“It’s a weird draft… after the first small grouping I think it tightens up, and there are at least 10 players beyond that group that could possibly move quite a bit higher on lists as we move forward.

Edwards continued, “We know we will take some heat for the McKenna ranking but it’s not new to us. We took heat for dropping many other consensus players in the past. Shane Wright, Aatu Raty, Eduard Sale, Mike Mcleod and so many more. As recently as last year we released our ranking on this date and we were the only public list with Schaefer at number one and I was forced to defend it! How about Joe Veleno…  while he near the top on many lists, we ranked him in the late 30’s. The thing I dislike about going against the consensus is that people think you hate a player. In this year’s example, we had McKenna number one in July and still have him 3rd overall and happily say is an absolute elite playmaker.”

This ranking simply marks the first data point for HockeyProspect.com.  We will see what the next 6 months brings. We will be adding content for INSIDERS and free content on our YOUTUBE channel very soon.

2026 NHL Draft Top 32 – November, 25th, 2025