Vancouver Canucks Finish 2025 NHL Entry Draft With Five Solid Picks on Day 2

The 2025 NHL Entry Draft has come to a close and it's safe to say that all 32 teams across the league will want to return to the old centralized format starting next season after a very long two days with Round 1 taking over four hours to complete and around five hours for Rounds 2 through 7.

Last night, the Vancouver Canucks selected Braeden Cootes from the Western Hockey League's Seattle Thunderbirds, a player that Patrik Allvin is very excited to add to his prospect pool.

Heading into draft week, the Vancouver Canucks were slated to have one draft selection in each of the seven rounds, but that changed on Wednesday when Patrik Allvin dealt a 2025 fourth round pick to the Edmonton Oilers and in return landed veteran forward Evander Kane.

Patrik Allvin and his scouting staff had some big decisions to make with their five draft picks on Saturday including with their second round selection and overall, the team had a pretty good day.

In the second round round, 47th overall, the Vancouver Canucks selected Russian goaltender Aleksei Medvedev of the OHL and Memorial Cup champion London Knights.

Medvedev, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, appeared in 34 games this past season for the Knights where he had a record of 22-8-2 along with a 2.79 goals against average, a .912 save percentage and three shutouts.

With London's primary netminder from the 2024-25 season Austin Elliott now aged out, Medvedev is in line to become the starting goaltender for one of the top junior hockey teams in all of Canada in September.

With the 65th overall pick in the third round, the Vancouver Canucks took another player from the Ontario Hockey League, selecting Kieren Dervin from the Kingston Frontenacs.

Dervin spent the majority of the 2024-25 season with St. Andrew's College, a prep school in Ontario and also got into ten games with the Frontenacs, registering three points and adding another three points in 11 postseason contests.

The 18-year-old centerman will be returning to the Frontenacs this fall before making the jump to the NCAA with Penn State University for the 2026-27 campaign.

The NHL Entry Draft wouldn't be complete without the Vancouver Canucks picking a Swedish player and that's exactly what Patrik Allvin did with the team's fifth round selection.

With the 143rd overall pick, the Canucks selected their third centerman of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft - Wilson Bjorck, who spent the majority of the year with Djurgardens IF J20 in the J20 Nationell.

Bjorck had a heck of a season for Djurgardens IF J20, putting up 67 points (28 goals, 39 assists) in 43 games and also appeared in ten contests for their men's team in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second-highest division of professional hockey in Sweden.

The Stockholm native will be making the jump to North America in the fall as he's committed to play for Colorado College in the NCAA, which is close enough for Vancouver Canucks scouts and management to get some live viewings in and keep a close eye on his development.

In the sixth round, 175th overall, the Vancouver Canucks picked another player from the Ontario Hockey League - their third in total - as they selected Gabriel Chiarot of Brampton Steelheads.

The Hamilton, Ontario native is the cousin of long-time National Hockey League defenseman Ben Chiarot, who is currently a member of the Detroit Red Wings.

Because of his birthday, September 17th, 2006, Chiarot missed out on being eligible for the 2024 NHL Entry Draft and he had a pretty good season with Brampton, where he was teammates with Vancouver Canucks prospect Vilmer Alriksson.

In 66 games with the Steelheads, Chiarot tallied 35 points (21 goals, 14 assists), 60 penalty minutes and was a plus-21.

Vancouver's final pick of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft came in the seventh round, 207th overall, as Patrik Allvin selected Matthew Lansing, who split the 2024-25 campaign between the Waterloo Black Hawks and the Fargo Force of the USHL, along with a handful of games with the US National Team Development Program.

The 6'1" centerman registered 27 points (12 goals, 15 assists), 51 penalty minutes and was a plus-20 in 54 games between Waterloo and Fargo this season.

Lansing, a native of Tonawanda, New York, is currently committed to playing with Quinnipiac University in the NCAA starting in September and will look to help them make it to the Division 1 Men's Hockey Tournament for the sixth year in a row.

With the NHL Entry Draft now officially over, the Vancouver Canucks' newest draftees, along with other members of their prospect pool, will head to British Columbia, which is expected to get underway next week.