BUFFALO - The 2026 NHL draft kicked off with Gavin McKenna going to the Toronto Maple Leafs and was pretty reasonable throughout. Sure, there were some surprises, but if you read our annual Draft Preview, you would have recognized a lot of the names that were taken in the first four rounds.

So now we come to the winners and losers. It’s a lot harder to determine the losers at an event like this because even teams that don’t make a lot of selections may hit on the ones that they had. And frankly, with almost all of these kids, we don’t know for sure who will be the next superstar and who will underachieve relative to their draft standing.

That’s why I tend to go with trends when it comes to losers in this column.

On the “winners” end, it’s obviously more fun. I’m not going to focus on Toronto here, because the Leafs had the No. 1 pick - of course they got an incredible player. And really, the first winner got the spot for the three picks they made in the first round, not just their first selection.

Yes, they had the second overall pick, where they took the best player available, Ivar Stenberg, but the San Jose Sharks also got some luck after that. The fact that defenseman Keaton Verhoeff - who easily could have gone top three - was available at No. 9 was a coup for the Sharks.

Then they nabbed another blueliner in Ryan Lin at No. 21, when Lin could have gone top-15 himself. Both Verhoeff and Lin bring offense from the back end, and with Stenberg being one of the most talented forwards in the class, San Jose got a haul to play with Macklin Celebrini in the coming years.

With seven first-rounders, Sweden did very well in Buffalo. Top 10 picks Stenberg and Viggo Bjorck (WIN) were expected, but the Tre Kronor had a nice run after that, including a surprise in No. 25 pick Jonas Lagerberg Hoen (OTT), who missed almost the entire season due to a knee injury.

It’s worth noting that Stenberg and Bjorck were instrumental in Sweden winning gold at the world juniors, while Alexander Command (NJ), Malte Gustafson (NYI), Elton Hermansson (LA) and Marcus Nordmark (ANA) all helped propel the Tre Kronor to gold at the World U-18s later on in the season. Championship experience at such a young age is never a bad thing.

When Liam Ruck was taken 22nd overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, the obvious and immediate question was whether the Penguins would swing a trade to take his twin brother, Markus, as well. It probably goes without saying that the Rucks had tremendous chemistry with the Medicine Hat Tigers in the WHL, so it behooved an NHL franchise to draft both of them.

Sure enough, Pittsburgh made the dream come true on Day 2, taking Markus 39th overall. And naturally, Liam stuck around to see his twin drafted. “It was important that we hugged each other first,” Markus said afterwards.

As we all know, goalies are voodoo. So it doesn’t always matter where they get picked. Carey Price went fifth overall, Pekka Rinne went 258th: Both are Hall of Famers now. But it was interesting that no netminders went in the first round of the 2026 draft.

The first tender off the board was USHL Youngstown’s Tobias Trejbal (CGY), who went 42nd overall. Trejbal was indeed my top goalie in the class, though I had him 28th overall. What’s really interesting is that Trejbal’s selection didn’t start a run on goalies, which often happens at the draft. Instead, the next netminder off the board was at No. 56, when Boston took Yuri Ivanov.

Had it not been for Wyatt Cullen’s growth spurt, this could have been a very tough draft for the U.S. NTDP. Cullen went 10th overall to Nashville, but he was the only NTDP kid to go in the first round. True, J.P. Hurlbert (DET) is an NTDP alum, but you don’t get points for a kid who left your program for his draft year.

It was an underwhelming year for Americans in general, but that’s all cyclical. The NTDP had a tough season on the ice, and coming out of 2026 with just three players in the top 50 (Casey Mutryn went 38th to Seattle; Victor Plante went 47th to Detroit) may cause some introspection.

While the length of the first round was marginally better than last year in Los Angeles, the second day was a crawl, particularly the middle. The second round began around 11 a.m. ET, and three hours later, we were still in the fourth.

A raft of trades had teams moving up and down a few picks, which resets the clock. Sometimes, the teams had the courtesy to make their selection right away - such as Los Angeles with Thomas Vandenberg - but others weren’t so forthcoming. If you make a trade for a pick, you should know who you’re taking immediately. Some of us need to get to Chef’s.

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