The Vancouver Canucks made two selections in the opening round of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft on Friday night. Following the first round, General Manager Ryan Johnson met with the media to discuss his picks and look ahead to day two, with the organization currently holding eight more picks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cReally good, a lot of work went into this,\u201d said Johnson when asked about how he felt the day went. \u201cYou never know how\u00a0it’s\u00a0going to fall. You’ve got to be prepared for so many different scenarios, but the way it played out with picking at three and 24, we looked at a lot of different options, but we got two very good hockey players, high compete, size, can skate, and fit exactly what we wanted to accomplish here.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caleb Malhotra was selected third overall, and the GM\u00a0says Malhotra was the right fit for the organization.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brings a bit of everything, obviously his progression over the last two years of playing in Chilliwack and playing against older, mature men, and going into the OHL, and the progression from day one to where he is now was watching that the ceiling is extremely high. He still has ways to grow and to evolve as a player, but\u00a0a good player, great human being, leadership qualities,\u00a0that’s\u00a0all.\u00a0Yeah,\u00a0it’s\u00a0that simple,\u201d said Johnson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnson said his scouting group has been\u00a0tracking\u00a0their picks over the past few years, and after the first two selections went as they did, there was no question who they wanted with the third overall pick. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The GM was asked about having Manny Malhotra as the head coach and Caleb as an NHL player in the future, and whether this situation could present a problem.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u00a0didn’t\u00a0draft Manny’s kid. We\u00a0drafted Caleb Malhotra, and you can tell how excited I am to have the opportunity to do that,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canucks\u2019 second first-round pick was Adam Novotn\u00fd. He is a 6\u20191\u201d, 205-pound winger out of the OHL. In his rookie OHL season, Novotn\u00fd scored 34 goals in 58 games. He has played two seasons of pro hockey in Czechia and has represented his country twice at the World Junior Championships.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of our discussion late last night was drafting winners, and he was a guy that we targeted the way he plays. His character in our interviews was very well received,\u201d said Johnson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe exudes\u00a0winner,\u00a0compete, along with a\u00a0[good]\u00a0skill set. The\u00a0amount\u00a0of goals he scored, his size, and\u00a0he’s\u00a0already very physically\u00a0mature,\u00a0he skates. It was a player that we felt at 24, we were extremely lucky to get, and again,\u00a0he’s\u00a0got pro habits at\u00a0a young age. So, we are just excited to continue to grow and watch him.\u00a0He’ll\u00a0head back to Peterborough next year and continue his development.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canucks are on the clock for the first\u00a0selection\u00a0of round two on Saturday morning. They currently have eight picks on day two.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Round two of the NHL draft begins at 8:00 a.m. PT, and you can watch rounds 2-7 on Sportsnet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks made two selections in the opening round of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-764066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}