2016 Vancouver Draft Overview

Glove tap to canuck89 for this ideal graphic for the next few days:

As we've seen in recent years, Vancouver tends to be a bit more interesting leading up to the draft day than on, say, the NHL trade deadline when they can't move a Radim Vrbata for a half-opened bag of unsalted peanuts.

Jim Benning has taken his fair share of criticisms since he coasted in to clean up the Gillis mess, and we have often said it'll take one strong day at the draft to erase much of that knee-jerk hate. Benning's key strength have always been lauded as his scouting, so whether he's steering a ship committed to a legit rebuild or a hybrid retool (ding ding ding!) should be very obvious by the end of the weekend.

Should Vancouver keep the 5th pick, they'll be getting - knock on every piece of wood in sight - a solid prospect that can be part of their post-Sedin identity. We went the Olli Juolevi route, others are casting an eye at Pierre-Luc Dubois route and the allure of Matthew Tkachuk or potential of Edmonton screwing everything up by moving their fourth seed should keep things interesting.

If Vancouver moves the fifth pick, then I recommend deleting your twitter account, hiding under a blanket and weep very quietly so others won't hear and judge.

Here's the road ahead:

Vancouver 2016 Draft Picks

Round 1 - Pick 5 - [Insert Awesome Guy Here]

Round 2 - Pick 33 - Gone to Florida in the Gubs trade.

Round 2 - To Vancouver via the Blues Jackets (either this year or in 2017 or 2018) for hiring Torts.

Round 3 - Pick 63 - [Insert Awesome Guy Here]

Round 4 - Pick 93 - Gone to Florida in the Gubs trade.

Round 5 - Pick X - Gone to Montreal in the Brandon Prust trade. Les sigh.

Round 5 - Pick X - To Vancouver via the Islanders in the Gubs trade.

Round 6 - Pick 153 - [Insert Awesome Guy Here]

Round 7 - Pick 183 - [Insert Awesome Guy Here]

Round 7 - Pick 193 - To Vancouver via Carolina from the Eddie Lack trade

Jim Benning's Draft Record So Far

2014

Round 1, 6th overall pick: Jake Virtanen

Round 1, 24th overall (from Anaheim): Jared McCann

Round 2: Thatcher Demko

Round 3: Nikita Tryamkin

Round 5: Gustav Forsling

Round 6: Kyle Pettit

Round 7: Mackenze Stewart

2015

Round 1 (23rd overall): Brock Boeser

Round 3: Guillaume Brisebois

Round 4: Dimitry Zhukenov

Round 5: Carl Neill

Round 5 (from Rangers): Adam Gaudette

Round 6: Lukas Jasek

Round 7: Tate Olson

How To Watch Tonight

Round one: Friday June 24th, 7pm EDT: NBCSN, Sportsnet and TVA Sports.

Rounds two to seven: Saturday June 25th, 10am: NHL Network, Sportsnet and TVA Sports 2.