In Abbotsford over the weekend, as a handful of the Vancouver Canucks’ most promising prospects competed against their Seattle Kraken counterparts for a rookie showcase event in advance of NHL training camp, it was impossible to shake the overwhelming sense of an organization that is still very much at the start of its rebuilding process.
This isn’t to downplay some of the impressive showings that the likes of Brooks Rogowski and Adam Novotný put together in Abbotsford, especially on Sunday afternoon. It’s important to remember, however, that NHL regulars are exceptionally good at hockey. Just about every player who played for the Canucks last season, and remember Vancouver finished in 32nd place in the NHL by 14 points, would’ve thoroughly dominated in that sort of environment.
As the Canucks go through this rebuilding process, there will be future prospect camps where a young player dons a Canucks uniform for a rookie showcase or tournament, and it’s crystal clear that they’re special and have an opportunity to make an NHL impact immediately. This year probably wasn’t that year, even if Novotný came pretty close to hitting that level.
With this in mind, I wanted to work through what sort of arrival times we can expect when we’re thinking about Vancouver’s top prospects. Now, obviously, the speed that a prospect graduates through the developmental funnel and cements themselves as a full-time NHL player is connected to how well they’re tracking and how good they become. As such, we’re going to outline our arrival times based on both a ceiling case and a median case developmental outcome for the Canucks’ top-six prospects based on our summer prospect rankings.
When will Vancouver’s top prospects arrive in the NHL, and what sort of contributor will they be when they do so? It’s perhaps the single most critical question for a team at the outset of a rebuilding effort, so let’s unpack it.
Which next gen superstars jumped the highest in the NHL player tiers?
Caleb Malhotra
Ceiling case arrival timeline: End of the 2026-27 season
Median case arrival timeline: End of the 2027-28 season
Caleb Malhotra will spend his draft-plus-one campaign at Boston University and projects to play top-six minutes. The Terriers lost their top-line centre from last season, Sacha Boisvert, who turned pro, but have centre Tynan Lawrence — who was a first-round pick in 2026, like Malhotra — returning for his first full college season. There will presumably be some level of internal competition for top-line ice time, although both Lawrence and Malhotra will likely log first-unit power-play time.
With the advent of NIL, the Division I level is more difficult than it’s ever been. And we saw a lot of high-pedigree players struggle to adjust from major junior to the college level last season. How well Malhotra handles that adjustment and performs will tell us a lot about his quality as a prospect, of course, but will also go a long way toward dictating his estimated time of arrival in the NHL.
Let’s take two instructive cases from the 2025 NHL Draft class, since they’re precisely a year ahead of Malhotra. No. 6 pick Porter Martone spent his season with Michigan State, where he was one of the best players in the country, producing 50 points in 35 games on a contender for the national championship. It was clear that Martone was ready for the NHL. At the conclusion of his season, the Philadelphia Flyers signed him, and he was an impact player immediately, including logging major minutes in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A more median outcome from a top-10 pick in the 2025 draft, however, was the path taken by Roger McQueen. McQueen went to Providence out of the WHL and produced very well — just under a point per game — before signing with the Anaheim Ducks at the conclusion of his season and beginning his professional career in the AHL. McQueen may arrive in the NHL this fall, but it seems more likely that he’ll spend the start of his first full professional season with the AHL San Diego Gulls, with his performance dictating his arrival toward the back end of his draft-plus-two campaign.
Basically, if Malhotra is dominant as a freshman, perhaps the Canucks determine he’s ready to play in the NHL by the end of this season. If Malhotra is just very good as a freshman, though, perhaps he cements himself as an NHLer toward the tail end of his draft-plus-two campaign.
Braeden Cootes
Ceiling case arrival timeline: Start of the 2026-27 season
Median case arrival timeline: Start of the 2027-28 season
Braeden Cootes didn’t light the world on fire in Abbotsford this weekend, but how a player performs at a prospect tournament or showcase doesn’t correlate perfectly with their chances of being an impact NHL player. For example, Bo Horvat once had a quiet tournament in Penticton, and then excelled for the Canucks as a rookie during the 2014-15 season.
Cootes’ pace and work rate still stood out, and if he’s ready, he could arrive as a full-time NHL player as soon as this season. Vancouver will probably want to be careful about rushing him, especially given the expansion considerations at play, but if Cootes is a genuine can’t-miss type standout at training camp, you’d have to imagine the temptation to find space for him on the NHL roster will be strong.
Cootes is also eligible to begin his professional career as an AHL player at 19 this fall thanks to a change in the rules of the NHL/CHL transfer agreement. Spending a full year in the AHL, which will offer very difficult competition for a 19-year-old, is the median outcome in Cootes’ case, but might be the best route for his development and for the Vancouver rebuild.
If he performs well in Abbotsford, he’d have an inside track to make the NHL in the fall of 2027.
Adam Novotný
Ceiling case arrival timeline: Cup of coffee in 2026-27, full-time NHLer at the start of the 2027-28 season
Median case arrival timeline: Start of the 2028-29 season
Against Kraken prospects, many of whom are experienced AHL players, Novotný’s ability to drive play, establish position down low and win board battles stood out. This is a physically mature 18-year-old player, and while elements of his game will require some work — specifically his shot selection — his two-way instincts and physical makeup are near NHL-ready, if not NHL-ready outright.
With expansion considerations in mind, there’s no reason for Novotný to be a full-time NHL player this season, no matter how well he performs or how ready he is. That said, a ceiling case for Novotný probably would include standing out to such an extent at training camp this fall that the Canucks permit him to play a small handful of NHL games — fewer than 10, in particular — before reassigning him to OHL Peterborough.
Novotný would then be better positioned to make the NHL roster full-time at the start of the 2027-28 season, and failing that, would be eligible to begin his professional career in the AHL next fall.
A more median outcome for a late first-round pick would involve Novotný being reassigned to junior, spending the entirety of the 2027-28 campaign as a 19-year-old in the AHL and then pushing to make the Canucks in the fall of 2028.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki
Ceiling case arrival timeline: Start of the 2026-27 season
Median case arrival timeline: End of the 2026-27 season
The ceiling case for Jonathan Lekkerimäki relative to where he was drafted in 2022 has already expired.
Waylaid by a variety of injuries, Lekkerimäki is likely to be on the outside looking in at the NHL roster bubble as training camp gets underway. His biggest areas of improvement, strength and speed in particular, are unlikely to have been addressed in full this summer, given that part of it was spent recovering from the surgical procedure that ended his 2025-26 campaign prematurely.
Perhaps none of that matters, and Lekkerimäki is ready to grab the bull by the horns and log major minutes for a rebuilding team that’s in desperate need of creativity and skill on the wings.
A more median outcome, however, is that Lekkerimäki goes back to the AHL and works on his core strength in the first half of this campaign. Then, as Vancouver sells off wingers ahead of the trade deadline, he arrives full-time in the NHL down the stretch.
Niklas Aaram-Olsen
Ceiling case arrival timeline: End of the 2027-28 season
Median case arrival timeline: End of the 2028-29 season
Niklas Aaram-Olsen, a second-round pick in the 2026 draft, is bound for Boston University, where he’ll be teammates with Malhotra.
Aaram-Olsen is a super athletic shoot-first winger, but scoring-line minutes on the wing and power-play opportunities may be tough to come by on a Terriers team loaded with NHL prospects like Jack Harvey, Ryder Ritchie and Jack Murtagh, among others.
If Aaram-Olsen is one of the most productive scoring forwards in the NCAA as a freshman or sophomore, and the latter seems far more likely, then the Canucks will surely look to sign him at the tail end of one of those seasons. A more median outcome for a second-round scoring prospect, however, is that Aaram-Olsen takes on a larger role over time, and Vancouver looks to sign him after his junior year, toward the tail end of the 2028-29 campaign.
Brooks Rogowski
Ceiling case arrival timeline: End of the 2027-28 season
Median case arrival timeline: End of the 2029-30 season
Rogowski, who has only been committed to hockey full-time for a few seasons, is returning to the OHL this season. He’s doing so fully aware that his physical development, which is the biggest benefit of playing in college as opposed to playing major junior, is less important for a player like him than the extra game reps and puck touches he can expect to benefit from at the major junior level.
Rogowski is a promising player with some very impressive tools, but his profile is that of a longer-term project. He’s already committed to join Michigan State for the 2027-28 campaign. The Spartans are one of the top programs in Division I, and how Rogowski performs in the OHL this season and then in the NCAA as a freshman in 2027-28 will determine his timeline.
If Rogowski can deliver on his tools and promise and dominate in the NCAA as a freshman, then the Canucks will surely push to sign him at the tail end of 2027-28. If Rogowski needs a bit more time to refine and develop his game, then he could arrive closer to the start of the next decade, which would be after his junior season.
