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The Giants team captain, who’s expected to be a first-round pick at the NHL Draft in June, announced on his Instagram Thursday that he was leaving for the NCAA
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Published Apr 02, 2026 • Last updated 9 hours ago • 4 minute read
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The Giants team captain Ryan Lin, who’s expected to be a first-round pick at the NHL Draft in June, announced on his Instagram Thursday that he was leaving for the NCAA. Photo by Rob WiltonArticle content
Ryan Lin is a 17-year-old from Richmond who was captaining the Vancouver Giants and had his family and friends at the games on a regular basis.
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The Giants brought in one of Lin’s longtime hockey buddies in Mathis Preston in a deal with the Spokane Chiefs just ahead of the January trade deadline, too. Vancouver brass were looking to build next season’s team around the highly skilled pair and, although you’ll have a hard time getting anyone in their camp to say it out loud, the Giants were undoubtedly hoping that pairing Lin and Preston would help entice both of them from looking at other options in the ever-changing junior hockey landscape.
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It didn’t work. On Thursday, it became official that the Giants need a new game plan for the coming campaign.
Lin announced on his Instagram he’s cutting ties with the club to sign on in the fall with the University of Denver Pioneers. The right-shot defenceman is giving up at least one year of junior eligibility. It had been rumoured for some time.
Lin’s hockey IQ is off the charts. He plays a mature, two-way game. He’s drawn raves for his attitude and his demeanour coming through the ranks.
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Lin’s going to be a first-round selection at the NHL Draft in June. He could well be a top-10 pick. He was playing for the junior team he grew up cheering for and having massive success doing it. If he’s willing to leave early considering all that, there’s still much to be figured out here with the game’s new development model.
This was the first season that the NCAA had opened up scholarship opportunities to Major Junior leagues like the WHL. The initial thought in the junior hockey world was that it was going to be largely older players taking advantage of the new setup, but there were 15 players who gave up multiple years of eligibility this season to go the American collegiate path.
That list was led by Gavin McKenna, the winger who jumped from the Medicine Hat Tigers to Penn State, and defenceman Keaton Verhoeff, who went from the Victoria Royals to North Dakota. McKenna is expected to go No. 1 overall at the draft in June, while Verhoeff is predicted to have his name called by a team within the first five or six picks.
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Mathis Preston and Ryan Lin celebrate Preston’s overtime game winner in the Vancouver Giants’ 4-3 triumph over the Tri-City Americans at the Langley Events Centre. Photo by Rob Wilton
Lin is bound to have company in this decision to go south. You’re already seeing speculation about schools trying to land Everett Silvertips defenceman Landon DuPont, 16, who’s in the running to be the 2027 NHL Draft top choice. Preston, 17, will have opportunities to go that route as well. He has a fancy skill set and could be a late first-round pick in Buffalo.
Denver is set to play Michigan next Thursday in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinals in Las Vegas. It will be their 41st game of the season. It will be just the second one that didn’t happen on either a Friday or a Saturday.
They fly to their games and they’ll generally play two games in a weekend in the same spot.
With precious few exceptions, WHL teams like the Giants bus to all their games. Midweek games are routine, and so are three-in-three weekends, where teams can sometimes play in three different cities from Friday to Sunday.
The Giants played 90 games regular season and playoffs combined when they went to the WHL championship series in 2019.
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That does mirror an NHL schedule and there are people in junior hockey who will tell you that’s what players need, that’s what’s best for their development. There’s logic to it, particularly when it comes to similarities in seven-game playoff series compared to the single-game elimination NCAA Frozen Four tournament.
Junior hockey teams would get a boost with NHL teams promoting it. Unfortunately for them, that doesn’t always happen. Forward Porter Martone, 19, was the No. 6 overall pick in last year’s draft by the Philadelphia Flyers and he went from the OHL’s Brampton Steelheads to Michigan State over the summer.
The 19-year-old left school to join the Flyers when Michigan State’s season ended recently.
Philadelphia general manager Daniel Briere was asked about why he thought Martone was ready for the NHL now and told reporters because of how “he’s developed physically.”
“And that was the biggest reason for encouraging the move to the NCAA this season: To have a stepping stone from the OHL to the NHL, developing his body, getting stronger. I think the amount of time he spent in the gym, you can see in his body how it’s changed. It’s almost going from a teenager to a man and his play on the ice spoke for itself,” Briere continued. “Playing against men in the NCAA, there’s a lot of strong players that are much older than the 16- or 17-year-olds in the CHL, so It was a good stepping stone for him.”
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Lin is listed at 5-foot-11 and 177 pounds. You can easily see an NHL team wanting him to spend extra time in the gym this coming season.
There are those in the WHL who are leaning into the changes, talking up the fact that there are players coming to the league now who wouldn’t have come before because they didn’t want to give up any NCAA eligibility. In that regard, you can look at guys like Kamloops Blazers forward J.P. Hurlbert, the Allen, Texas product who put up 42 goals and 97 points this season with the Blazers and is likely to be a first-round pick in June as well.
He’s committed to Michigan for next season, so he’ll most certainly be a one-and-done guy with the WHL. That could be the new norm in the league, with plenty of roster turnover every season.
It’s change. Change can be difficult. And, with the junior hockey, there’s undoubtedly more to come.
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