Matt Johnson
The San Jose Sharks‘ lottery luck struck again this year, with the team earning the second overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft after just missing out on the playoffs. Now the question has become who will the Sharks draft?
In a poll of NHL executives and scouts conducted by Corey Pronman of The Athletic, every evaluator shared the belief that the Sharks will select defenseman Chase Reid with the second overall pick.
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Reid isn’t necessarily viewed as the second-best player in the 2026 NHL Draft class. ESPN‘s Rachel Kryshak ranked Reid as the fourth-best player and the second-best defenseman, and he’s rated as the fifth-best player by EliteProspects.com.
Reid does, however, fill a long-term need for San Jose. One of the club’s top priorities this offseason is expected to be finding a right-handed defenseman who can lead the power-play unit for years to come.
“The scouts pointed to the Sharks’ desperate need for a high-end defenseman in their rebuild, especially given the tight, close group of prospects available in this tier of the draft. Like McKenna, not everyone had Reid as a top-two prospect in the draft on their personal list, but most had him either in that range or very close to it.”
The Athletic’s Corey Pronman on what scouts, execs expect the San Jose Sharks to do with the second overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft
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There are reasons to think San Jose might not select Reid or another defenseman with its top selection. Among them, despite the young nucleus of forwards, the Sharks went 2-17-3 in games where Macklin Celebrini didn’t score a point this past season.
Furthermore, one reason why Celebrini finished fourth in voting for the Hart Trophy is because he scored 115 points in 2025-26, and the team’s second-leading scorer (Will Smith) only had 59 points.
That’s why general manager Mike Grier may wind up taking winger Ivar Stenberg. The 18-year-old is viewed as arguably just as good a prospect as Gavin McKenna, if not better.
Given San Jose’s history of going BPA, as Grier demonstrated last year by selecting goalie Joshua Ravensbergen with the 30th overall pick, the Sharks might end up taking Stenberg despite the league-wide expectation that a defenseman is their focus.
