The Vancouver Canucks head into this summer with a shocking lack of draft capital.
The team holds just five selections for this year’s event, their fewest since the 2020 draft. They also have no picks in the first two rounds, dealing both picks across the last two years.
There are 28 NHL teams with more draft capital for this year’s event on June 28 than the Canucks.
PuckPedia has a draft pick value calculator which displays the relative value of each team’s haul. The values were created by Matt Perri, former Director of Hockey Analytics for the Arizona Coyotes. For reference, the first overall pick has a value of 100.
You can see the four teams with the least value heading into this year’s draft below. They are also the only four teams without a pick in the first two rounds.
| Team | Total picks | Total draft pick value |
| Vancouver Canucks | Five | 3.74 |
| Florida Panthers | Four | 3.41 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | Five | 2.09 |
| Boston Bruins | Three | 1.81 |
All four teams made the playoffs last season. The Tampa Bay Lightning lost in the first round, the Canucks and Boston Bruins in the second round, and the Florida Panthers are currently two wins away from hoisting the Stanley Cup.
At the bottom of the list are the Bruins, who have just three picks, the highest of which is in the fourth round. The Canucks’ lone third-round selection is worth more than the Bruins’s entire draft combined.
Draft picks aren’t just important for stocking a team’s prospect pool, they’re also valuable currency as a highly-liquid and easily tradable asset. The value of draft picks is much more easily agreed upon by potential trade partners compared to players.
The Canucks current management regime, led by Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin, has been aggressive in moving out draft picks to flesh out the roster. The deals to acquire Sam Lafferty, Casey DeSmith, Nikita Zadorov, and Elias Lindholm all required moving out picks.
With few picks this year and their 2025 and 2026 third-round picks already gone, they’ll have fewer opportunities to make those types of moves. If they do, they’ll be depleting an already meagre pool of picks.
The Canucks made seven picks at last year’s draft and they received immediate dividends. Hunter Brzustewicz, the team’s third-round pick last season, started the season on fire, raised his value, and was used as a major trade chip to bring in a very strong player in Lindholm.