{"id":716989,"date":"2026-06-05T13:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716989\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:11:26","slug":"canucks-nhl-combine-notes-the-ruck-twins-ivar-stenberg-and-viggo-bjorck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716989\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks NHL Combine notes: The Ruck twins, Ivar Stenberg and Viggo Bj\u00f6rck"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Even as general manager Ryan Johnson jetted off to Vancouver to take part in the formal introduction<\/a> of Manny Malhotra at Rogers Arena on Thursday morning, the Canucks left a relatively large segment of their staff in Buffalo, N.Y., as the NHL Scouting Combine continued.<\/p>\n

This is a critical draft for a franchise that owns the No. 3 pick, two first-round picks, four picks in the top 50 and 10 picks overall. Converting that surplus draft capital into a meaningful haul of valuable talent is an essential first step if the club is to move through the competitive oblivion of this rebuilding process on any sort of expedited or reasonable timeline.<\/p>\n

As the Canucks wine and dine top-five hopefuls and interview dozens more prospects during the day at the Buffalo Marriott, the combine is only just getting into full swing. The players do the majority of their fitness testing on Saturday morning, and the top prospects do the bulk of their formal media on Friday afternoon, but already on Thursday, prospects were being shuttled around to do grip testing and other basic tests. Much of the V02 max testing will occur on Friday, in advance of the official weigh-ins, measurements and athletic testing on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here\u2019s some of what The Athletic has heard from several top prospects at the combine.<\/p>\n

Viggo Bj\u00f6rck is going to interview very well<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made the case for considering Viggo Bj\u00f6rck with the third pick in recent weeks. I haven\u2019t heard anything to suggest the Canucks could be in the mix for him \u2014 the club didn\u2019t plan to take him for dinner this week, but he had meetings scheduled with the Seattle Kraken and Florida Panthers, a solid indication of where his range likely is within the industry \u2014 but it\u2019s clear that he\u2019s rising a bit as this process winds down.<\/p>\n

His standout performance against NHL players at the World Championships helped stabilize Bj\u00f6rck\u2019s stock significantly. It put to bed any concerns about his size and speed, and whether that might translate to the NHL.<\/p>\n

Expect his stock to continue to rise. Bj\u00f6rck is going to interview very well, and already has, in Buffalo. The skilled pivot speaks almost perfect English and is uncommonly engaging to speak with.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s also likely to measure in just a hair under 5-foot-10 when the official measurements are taken this weekend, there can also be absolutely no question that he doesn\u2019t qualify as \u201csmall\u201d in any meaningful sense when you see him in person. Bj\u00f6rck looks very much like a professional hockey player, with a big frame and broad shoulders. It\u2019s no surprise that he was winning draws and board battles against NHL players just last week over in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Nico Hischier before (we played Switzerland), and then I had the first faceoff of the game against him,\u201d Bj\u00f6rck told The Athletic when asked if he had an \u201caha\u201d moment playing at the worlds. \u201cSo I just go up to him, look at him and think \u2018OK, we\u2019re doing this\u2019, and then the puck dropped, and he immediately and cleanly snapped it back. After that, I thought to myself, \u2018Well, I have to get my head in the game.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bj\u00f6rck did exactly that. He won his next three faceoffs to close out the first period.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s super cool to play against Ryan O\u2019Reilly and Sidney Crosby, some of the guys you grew up watching,\u201d Bj\u00f6rck said about playing at the worlds. \u201cIt was an amazing experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually tried to grab Sid on one sequence one time, but he\u2019s super strong. His raw speed, physicality, that\u2019s the level you\u2019re trying to get to. Of course, Crosby is on a different planet, but I felt like I got a sense of how it\u2019s going to be over in the NHL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bj\u00f6rck is also the brother of Canucks prospect Wilson Bj\u00f6rck, who was a fifth-round pick in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it would be cool,\u201d Bj\u00f6rck answered when asked if it would be a dream come true to be drafted by the same team as his brother. \u201cI really enjoy spending time with him, I mean, he\u2019s my best friend. We do everything together, we hang out all the time. To play in the NHL is my dream, but to do that and to play with my brother? That\u2019s a dream in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Ivar Stenberg learned when the offence dried up in the second half<\/p>\n

Ivar Stenberg is a very special player.<\/p>\n

When we\u2019re talking about Stenberg, who has a dinner scheduled with the Canucks but hadn\u2019t attended that particular date when The Athletic spoke with him on Thursday afternoon, we\u2019re talking about one of the most productive 18-year-olds in SHL history. A smooth, complete winger who plays well through contact, dominated the World Juniors and finished second only behind Lucas Raymond for Sweden\u2019s senior men\u2019s team at the World Championships last month in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The maturity and completeness of Stenberg\u2019s game, in combination with his high-end skill, have him widely ranked as the consensus second-best prospect in the 2026 draft. The San Jose Sharks, however, could lean toward the back end given the unbalanced nature of their current talent distribution. And the Canucks have been closely tied to Caleb Malhotra for months with the third pick.<\/p>\n

If the teams at the top of the draft overthink this and Stenberg falls out of the top three, the Chicago Blackhawks could have a massive steal on their hands. There\u2019s really no doubt that Stenberg\u2019s profile is legitimately elite.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo play with and against NHL players for the first time, it was super fun, and I learned a lot,\u201d Stenberg told The Athletic on Thursday when asked about his experience playing at the World Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when you play against Crosby and Macklin Celebrini, I mean, that\u2019s unique,\u201d Stenberg continued. \u201cIt was something special. Crosby tried to hit me one time, and let me tell you, I will remember that for a long time, even if nothing special happened. I just jumped away.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a moment in January where Stenberg was on pace to be the most productive 18-year-old in SHL history, and fresh off being the best and most complete player at the World Juniors. From there, however, his scoring pace sagged somewhat down the stretch of Fr\u00f6lunda\u2019s season.<\/p>\n

It was a stretch that Stenberg put behind him with a point-per-game showing at the worlds. It was also a stretch that only fortified his belief that his effectiveness isn\u2019t necessarily tied to producing points exclusively.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the puck doesn\u2019t go in,\u201d Stenberg said of what he took from that experience on Thursday. \u201cYou can play good, but sometimes you\u2019ll have five chances and none of them go in. Other games you don\u2019t play as well, but you score on your one chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get into those periods and just have to come out from them stronger, I think that\u2019s an important part of hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SHL, it\u2019s really tough to produce points,\u201d Stenberg added. \u201cYou just have to keep playing well, and keep playing well everywhere on the ice if you want to keep getting ice time. For me, I was playing well, I was sure of it. I can\u2019t get too focused on the goals, and I knew in those games that I was still playing good hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ruck twins want to be drafted together<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a brother, but in covering Henrik and Daniel Sedin and also in covering Quinn Hughes and his brothers over the years, I\u2019ve been able to observe that there are some primary dynamics at play with elite hockey players who are siblings.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Sedins, they\u2019re highly competitive with one another. They live to one-up each other in everything, whether it\u2019s a joke in a Hall of Fame speech, locker room table tennis, pull-ups during fitness training or doing the Grouse Grind for fun.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Hughes brothers, in contrast, they\u2019re extraordinarily supportive of one another. Quinn wouldn\u2019t even jokingly roast Jack and always insisted that Luke was going to be the best of the three of them. Quinn was always his brothers\u2019 single most committed fan.<\/p>\n

With twins Liam and Markus Ruck, who grew up Canucks fans in Osoyoos, B.C., and are projected to be picked in the late first or early second, I was curious if either dynamic applied to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say a little of both,\u201d answered Liam. \u201cWe have that competitiveness, but we\u2019re doing it to make each other both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree. We love competing with each other and pushing each other. But we also want what\u2019s best. I want him to do great, and I also want to do great,\u201d echoed Markus.<\/p>\n

The Ruck twins are identical. Harder to tell apart than Henrik and Daniel were in their 20s, and not by a little bit.<\/p>\n

Markus is slightly more outgoing of the two and is the pass-first centre. Liam is slightly more reserved and is the lethal, heavy finisher. If you\u2019re a long-time Canucks fan and were around for the golden era teams during Henrik and Daniel\u2019s prime, you can\u2019t help but immediately understand that there\u2019s an uncannily familiar dynamic to that.<\/p>\n

The Rucks have both interviewed with the Canucks this week, but it\u2019s been difficult to ascertain exactly how interested the team may be in selecting one or both of them. In addition to Vancouver, who own the 24th, 33rd and 41st picks at the draft, there are other teams with multiple picks in the mid-to-late first and early second \u2014 the Calgary Flames, Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues \u2014 who are well positioned to be in the mix to select both skilled forwards, and seem to have some level of interest in doing so.<\/p>\n

After the combine concludes, they plan to visit colleges and will pick a program to commit to for the 2027-28 season. Their plan seems to be to spend another year in Medicine Hat and use that time to focus on getting bigger and stronger and improving their skating. They\u2019ll have more time to do so now, too, given that they\u2019ve graduated from high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think that\u2019s the plan,\u201d said Markus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked to Gavin (McKenna) a little bit about NCAA, and he thought it was great for him to challenge himself against bigger players. His path is a little different than ours, and we\u2019re not trying to rush things. It\u2019s not a sprint, it\u2019s a marathon. We\u2019re not the biggest guys right now, so we have some stuff we still want to work on, and we don\u2019t think it\u2019ll hurt us to play another year with Medicine Hat.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the Rucks, they\u2019re not hiding from NHL teams at the combine that their strong preference is to be drafted by the same organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the dream right there,\u201d said Liam. \u201cWe know it\u2019s hard for all these teams. It\u2019s never easy to draft two players who are similarly ranked to the same team, but every team has asked us what we think and how badly we want to be together. We do say that it is our hope, but we\u2019ll see how it plays out. It would be cool if it does happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would mean so much,\u201d said Markus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Even as general manager Ryan Johnson jetted off to Vancouver to take part in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85,2371],"class_list":["post-716989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716989","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=716989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}