Which players’ draft stock changed after the 2026 World Juniors?
Sweden finished the 2026 World Juniors with a gold medal around their neck and forward Ivar Stenberg stood out among their best players as he continues to add to his resume ahead of the 2026 NHL Draft.
While he thrilled with three goals and four assists in the six games en route to the title, other top prospects may not have impressed as much. Notably, Canada’s Gavin McKenna, who won a bronze medal, did not live up to lofty expectations, despite finishing with four goals and 10 assists through six games as well.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, The Sheet’s Jeff Marek joined hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to break down which players’ draft stock changed after the 2026 tournament.
Carter Hutton: When you went into this with expectations of players and what you thought you were going to get from a Gavin McKenna or Keaton Verhoeff, or some of the other players that were trying to plant their flag as to where they would go in the draft, is there anyone you think the tournament hurt, and anyone it helped, particularly with Canada?
Jeff Marek: There are a few Alberts Smits on Latvia, who’s now going to play with Latvia at the Olympics… he just played at the World Juniors, he’s going to be a first-round pick, maybe even a top 10, dare we say top five now, and he’s also going to play in the Olympics. What a season it’s going to be for Alberts Smits. This tournament put him on everybody’s map.
But Ivar Stenberg has to be the guy now that everybody has to look at, and everyone has seen Gavin McKenna. Points-wise, Gavin McKenna had a tournament, but Stenberg has really made this thing a race. And what you’re going to see now is more and more scouting services and people that put public lists together, more and more of them, you’re going to start to see Stenberg as number one and Gavin McKenna slowly dropping down that list.
Having said all this, this is not the year to tank. There are some years when you want to try for guys like Macklin Celebrini, Mathew Schafer and Connor Bedard, but there are no players like that in this year’s draft.
We’re talking about 17 and 18-year-old kids, and it’s all different, and development is a big part of it, and hitting growth cycles and all these different types of things. But as it stands right now, if you plan to hit it big at this year’s draft, it’s going to turn around our franchise. It doesn’t look like that is going to happen.
Chase Reid, I want to throw in there as well. Chase Reid, defenseman for the United States, who plays for the Sault Greyhounds, has become an incredible story, from kind of obscurity 18 months ago to now, he might go top three in the NHL Draft. He’s another one who really helped cement his position in the draft. He was fantastic.
You can catch the rest of Marek’s World Junior segment as the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…