{"id":337599,"date":"2026-05-29T14:35:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337599\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:35:28","slug":"nhl-execs-scouts-predict-who-san-jose-sharks-take-at-no-2-in-2026-nhl-draft-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337599\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Execs, Scouts Predict Who San Jose Sharks Take at No. 2 in 2026 NHL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Jose Sharks<\/a>\u2018 lottery luck struck again this year, with the team earning the second overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft after just missing out on the playoffs. Now the question has become who will the Sharks draft?<\/p>\n

In a poll of NHL executives and scouts conducted by Corey Pronman of The Athletic<\/a>, every evaluator shared the belief that the Sharks will select defenseman Chase Reid with the second overall pick.<\/p>\n

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Related:\u00a0Insider Sheds Light On Looming Macklin Celebrini Contract Extension Talks<\/a><\/p>\n

Reid isn\u2019t necessarily viewed as the second-best player in the 2026 NHL Draft class. ESPN<\/a>\u2018s Rachel Kryshak ranked Reid as the fourth-best player and the second-best defenseman, and he\u2019s rated as the fifth-best player by EliteProspects.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reid does, however, fill a long-term need for San Jose<\/a>. One of the club\u2019s top priorities this offseason is expected to be finding a right-handed defenseman who can lead the power-play unit for years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scouts pointed to the Sharks\u2019 desperate need for a high-end defenseman in their rebuild, especially given the tight, close group of prospects available in this tier of the draft. Like McKenna, not everyone had Reid as a top-two prospect in the draft on their personal list, but most had him either in that range or very close to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Athletic\u2019s Corey Pronman on what scouts, execs expect the San Jose Sharks to do with the second overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft<\/p>\n

Related: Latest Intel on Sharks\u2019 Contact Talks with Mario Ferraro<\/a><\/p>\n

There are reasons to think San Jose might not select Reid or another defenseman with its top selection. Among them, despite the young nucleus of forwards, the Sharks went 2-17-3 in games where Macklin Celebrini didn\u2019t score a point this past season.<\/p>\n

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Furthermore, one reason why Celebrini finished fourth in voting for the Hart Trophy is because he scored 115 points in 2025-26, and the team\u2019s second-leading scorer (Will Smith<\/a>) only had 59 points.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why general manager Mike Grier may wind up taking winger Ivar Stenberg. The 18-year-old is viewed as arguably just as good a prospect as Gavin McKenna, if not better.<\/p>\n

Given San Jose\u2019s history of going BPA, as Grier demonstrated last year by selecting goalie Joshua Ravensbergen with the 30th overall pick, the Sharks might end up taking Stenberg despite the league-wide expectation that a defenseman is their focus.<\/p>\n

Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Sharks\u2018 lottery luck struck again this year, with the team earning the second overall pick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[106081,95508,131198,1035,404,88,90,89,98,3578],"class_list":["post-337599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-chase-reid","tag-corey-pronman","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-will-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}