Vancouver Canucks' Prospect Pool Reportedly Among the National Hockey League's Worst

While the Vancouver Canucks might not have the deepest prospect pool in the National Hockey League, they do have some really nice pieces for the future all thanks to the great work from General Manager Patrik Allvin and his scouting staff.

In this year's NHL Entry Draft, the Canucks addressed a big need down the middle by selecting Braeden Cootes with the 15th overall pick in the first round and followed that up with five solid choices on Day 2 including goaltender Aleksei Medvedev of the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights.

With the 2025-26 season now over a month old, TSN has decided to release their annual Under-24 core rankings and for the Vancouver Canucks not only are they low on the list, they've managed to drop a few spots when compared to this time last year.

Earlier this week, TSN announced their Under-24 core rankings for the 2025-26 campaign and for the second consecutive year, the Montreal Canadiens take the top spot with Ivan Demidov, Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovsky and Jacob Fowler leading the way.

Looking further down that list, which was put together by Craig Button of TSN and Chris Peters of FloHockey, and you'll see the Vancouver Canucks come in at 26th, a drop of three spot from last season.

2023 first round pick Tom Willander, who was called up by the club at the end of October, is the only player 24 and under in the Vancouver Canucks organization to be given an 'A' grade by TSN, which signifies top pairing potential.

As for the other three names mentioned for the Vancouver Canucks - forwards Braeden Cootes & Jonathan Lekkerimaki, along with goaltender Aleksei Medvedev, they were all given a 'B' grade, meaning potential to be a top-six forward and for the latter, a tandem goalie.

While the Canucks might be low on TSN's list, they aren't there is another Canadian team ranked below them - the Edmonton Oilers - who don't have any 'A' graded prospects/players as part of their Under-24 core.