{"id":227887,"date":"2025-10-20T16:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227887\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T16:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:48:08","slug":"nhl-central-scouting-releases-its-preliminary-players-to-watch-list-for-2026-nhl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227887\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Central Scouting releases its preliminary players to watch list for 2026 NHL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

NHL Central Scouting released its preliminary players to watch list<\/a> for the 2026 NHL Draft class on Monday.<\/p>\n

The list includes 469 players from across North America and Europe divided by five ratings using the following criteria:<\/p>\n

A Rating \u2014 Indicates a 1st round candidate
\nB Rating \u2014 Indicates a 2nd\/3rd round candidate
\nC Rating \u2014 Indicates a 4th\/5th round candidate
\nW Rating \u2014 Indicates a 6th\/7th round candidate
\nLV (Limited Viewing) \u2014 Injured players who have not had sufficient viewings to be categorized<\/p>\n

A total of 27 players were given an \u2018A\u2019 rating. That list is highlighted by Penn State star Gavin McKenna (who was notably given a 5-foot-11, 170-pound listing after previously being listed at 6-foot), North Dakota defenseman Keaton Verhoeff, Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg, Muskegon Lumberjacks center Tynan Lawrence and Windsor Spitfires winger Ethan Belchetz.<\/p>\n

Early-season risers<\/p>\n

Kamloops forward J.P. Hurlbert, Brantford center Caleb Malhotra and Victoriaville center Egor Shilov have played their way to \u2018A\u2019 ratings with their play over the last few weeks. They were each viewed a B-grade prospects coming into the year.<\/p>\n

Hurlbert, a Michigan commit who left USA Hockey\u2019s NTDP to play his draft year with the Blazers, wears a letter there and leads the WHL in scoring by six points at the moment.<\/p>\n

Malhotra, a BU commit who left the BCHL to join the Bulldogs, has slotted onto their loaded first-unit power play and driven a middle-six line for them at five-on-five with fellow draft-eligible Aiden O\u2019Donnell (who received a \u2018B\u2019 rating) and diminutive Michigan commit Cooper Dennis.<\/p>\n

Shilov is one of the Q\u2019s leading scorers early on as well and has made a lot of plays inside the offensive zone as a first-year player there.<\/p>\n

Latvian defenseman Alberts Smits (\u2018A\u2019 rating) has turned some heads with some of the plays he has made in Finland over the last couple of months, too.<\/p>\n

A note on Viggo Bjorck<\/p>\n

Center Viggo Bjorck, who started the year in the SHL and holds junior scoring records in Sweden, has been given a \u2018B\u2019 rating. This may come as a surprise to fans because of his notoriety (he\u2019s going to be on Sweden\u2019s World Junior team in December) and production, but some scouts view him similarly as a late-first\/early-second type and his 5-foot-9 listing works against him.<\/p>\n

Surprises<\/p>\n

There were only two \u2018A\u2019 ratings that I disagree with: Oshawa\u2019s Brooks Rogowski and NTDP defenseman Luke Schairer.<\/p>\n

Rogowski is a Michigan State commit that I view as more of a late-second\/third-rounder. He\u2019s a towering 6-foot-7 forward that I\u2019ve seen a ton of with the Generals and has never convinced me that he has the disposition to play the way teams will want him to play at the pro level. I\u2019m not the only one who feels that way, either. He\u2019s got some doubters in hockey circles, too, despite decent skill for a player his size.<\/p>\n

Schairer has felt to me like his status continues to be carried by his U17s a full year ago now. He\u2019s a decent prospect, but I don\u2019t see a first-rounder there and haven\u2019t for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL Central Scouting released its preliminary players to watch list for the 2026 NHL Draft class on Monday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-227887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}