NHL Best Bets – 2026 NHL Entry Draft pt I

Viggo Bjorck is a draft riser

In a draft class that has had more pre-draft chaos than any in recent memory, the fourth overall pick is the eye of the storm. The Buffalo Sabres acquired the No. 4 overall choice from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for defenseman Bowen Byram and forward Jordan Greenway. That trade alone would be a storyline. But what Buffalo is actually doing with that pick — and who ends up on the clock when they make it — is where the real intrigue lives. Viggo Bjorck at fourth overall at +300 is the value bet that lives at the intersection of two giant wildcards: the most fascinating prospect riser in the class and a franchise that may not even make the pick themselves and why Bjorck at Pick Number 4 is an NHL best bet. 

One of the biggest storylines of draft week is whether the Buffalo Sabres are going to pick with their newly acquired No. 4 overall pick, or whether they have something bigger planned for their roster. The answer, based on everything swirling around the league in the days leading up to the draft, is that Buffalo is very much in the business of using that pick as a trade chip. And with players like Connor Hellebuyck, Zach Werenski and Dylan Larkin being available, could be the chips that fall into the Sabres lap. A center-needy or forward-needy acquiring team inherits the fourth overall pick in a class where the most exciting forward available might be an 18-year-old Swede who started the season unranked and ended it as the talk of every war room.

Bjorck started his draft year with an NHL Central Scouting "B" category designation — essentially projecting him as a second or third-round pick. By the final rankings, he sits fifth among international skaters. The catalyst? A World Junior Championship performance that made it impossible to leave him anywhere but the first round. There isn't a center in the draft class who is as complete and well-rounded as Viggo Bjorck. His motor, intelligence and skill are all near the top of the class. He was often Djurgarden's No. 1 center down the stretch this season, playing smart two-way hockey against men twice his age in some cases. He also set the scoring record at the junior level in Sweden at 16, making this an NHL best bet for the 2026 NHL Entry Draft.

Six drafts. Six first-round picks. Zero defensemen selected.

That is the entire history of the Seattle Kraken's first-round draft decisions, and it is the single most important context for understanding why Keaton Verhoeff at seventh overall to Seattle is not just a NHL best bet at -120. When an organization has spent half a decade loading its prospect pipeline with centers and wingers while its analysts and beat writers openly flag the blue line as the franchise's most glaring structural weakness, and then that team lands at seventh overall in a class where the consensus top talent is a cluster of elite defensemen, the pick makes itself.

The numbers are stark and the organization has stopped pretending otherwise. Seattle has drafted a center in four of their five drafts, with Jake O'Brien joining Matty Beniers, Shane Wright and Berkly Catton as first-round center selections. The Kraken drafted left wing Eduard Šalé in 2023. They have yet to use a first-round pick on a defenseman.Verhoeff is not a consolation prize for teams who missed on the top two forwards. He is, by the evaluation of most scouts who have watched him up close, a top defensive prospect.

Verhoeff is a 6-foot-4, 212-pound right-shot defenseman who scored 21 goals as a 16-year-old in the WHL — an almost unheard-of feat for a defenseman at that age — then chose to move to the NCAA for his draft year, becoming the youngest player ever to suit up for a varsity game at the University of North Dakota. Let that age detail sink in. Not the youngest player to start at North Dakota in this class — the youngest player in the history of the program. This is exactly the cornerstone piece the Seattle Kraken could use in their blueline and why Verhoeff at Pick Number 7 is an NHL best bet.