The 2026 NHL Draft is a week away, and the Philadelphia Flyers have one first-round pick to use on Friday night. While there is a chance they make a first-round trade for the third straight year, what we know right now is that Danny Briere & Co. own the 21st overall selection in the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tougher to get a top-of-the-lineup player later in the first round, but teams can still find impact players. The Flyers have done that a few times themselves with the likes of Claude Giroux (22nd), Travis Konecny (24th), and Tyson Foerster (23rd).<\/p>\n
The first group of mock drafts after the NHL Scouting Combine<\/a> had the Flyers focused on centers. While they may still look to add down the middle, we\u2019re starting to see some variety in these mock drafts, particularly with a few defensemen in the mix.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at some recent mock drafts, in chronological order.<\/p>\n The Athletic<\/a> \u2013 Scott Wheeler (June 9)<\/p>\n 21. Philadelphia Flyers:\u00a0Maksim Sokolovskii, LHD, London (OHL)<\/p>\n \u201cThe 6-foot-7.25, 240-pound Sokolovskii was the talk of the combine this year. The belief is that he\u2019s going to go in the first round and potentially as early as the early 20s. He\u2019s a physical specimen who can move, and while his game is still very raw in a lot of areas, he started to put his game together in the second half of his rookie season in the OHL this year. He\u2019s the Flyers\u2019 type, and they have a track record with the London Knights. If Bleyl is still here, I could see them targeting him over Sokolovskii as well.\u201c<\/p>\n Sokolovskii is a player that Keith Jones would love. The Flyers don\u2019t have a ton of defensemen in the pipeline, and as Wheeler mentioned, they\u2019ve drafted some London Knights in the past.<\/p>\n The big defenseman is 55th in Elite Prospects\u2019 consolidated ranking, with EP themselves being the highest on him at 22. However, Chris Peters has him at 59 and Craig Button at 60. <\/p>\n The Athletic<\/a> \u2013 NHL Staff (June 15)<\/p>\n 21. Philadelphia Flyers:\u00a0Maddox Dagenais, C, Quebec (QMJHL)<\/p>\n \u201cDagenais would have fit right in with the Flyers\u2019 2025 draft class as a player with good size (6-foot-4, 196 pounds) and who needs to continue to work on his skating. While the Flyers already have a few centers like that in their system (Jack Nesbitt, Jack Berglund), adding another wouldn\u2019t necessarily be a deterrent \u2014 particularly for a team that\u2019s probably going to have to trade at least one or two prospects in the future to procure more high-end NHL talent. \u2014 Kevin Kurz\u201c<\/p>\n Dagenais would be a fun name to add to the Flyers\u2019 prospect pool, and he\u2019s ranked by most in the first round. The only potential issue is that he\u2019s projected to possibly be more of a winger than a center at the next level, but teams should ultimately take the best player available, and the Flyers could use a wing in their pipeline.<\/p>\n EP\u2019s consolidated ranking has him at 29, with EP, Chris Peters, and McKeen\u2019s Hockey ranking him in the teens.<\/p>\n The Athletic<\/a> \u2013 Corey Pronman (June 18)<\/p>\n 21. Philadelphia Flyers:\u00a0William H\u00e5kansson, LHD, Lule\u00e5 HF (SHL)<\/p>\n \u201cH\u00e5kansson reminds a lot of scouts of Stars defender Lian Bichsel at the same age, and this is the range he went in. The Flyers add a big, physical, mobile defenseman to a system which currently lacks that player type.\u201c<\/p>\n Hakansson split time this season between the SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan, which is the Swedish equivalent of the AHL. He also won gold with Flyers prospect Jack Berglund at the World Juniors, which is impressive for a 17-year-old.<\/p>\n While he\u2019s not quite 6\u20197\u2033 like Sokolovskii, the Swedish blueliner stands at 6\u20194\u2033 at age 17. He could be a perfect fit for the Flyers<\/a> at 21st overall.<\/p>\n The defenseman is 31st in the consolidated ranking, getting two rankings as high as 19 but as low as 44 and 58. <\/p>\n