The Vancouver Canucks entered the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo looking to restock the organization with talented young players.
Vancouver finished last in the NHL last season with a 25-49-8 record and held four picks in the top 41, including No. 3 and 24 overall in the first round.
The Canucks bet heavily on the Ontario Hockey League with their first three selections. After selecting highly touted centre Caleb Malhotra third overall from the Brantford Bulldogs, the Canucks selected winger Adam Novotny from the Peterborough Petes with the No. 24 pick.
Add in centre Brooks Rogowski from the Oshawa Generals with the 33rd overall selection in the second round, and the Canucks acquired three prospects who have the pedigree to be some of the movers and shakers of last season’s draft class.
“I think, in my opinion, they had the best draft out of anybody,” Petes director of player personnel and assistant coach Patrick O’Connor told TSN in August. “All the players are guys we coach against every day, so those first three picks are particularly strong.”
O’Connor’s role with the Petes puts him in a spot where he gets to know the players on a personal level. He describes his responsibilities as being in charge of all aspects of a player’s experience when they join the organization – both on and off the ice.
This includes things like strength and conditioning, dietary requirements, billet families, and education. He said that it’s his job to be a sounding board for the players and be someone who they can talk to if an issue arises.
He also heads Peterborough’s CHL Import Draft, including making the decision to draft Novotny eighth overall in the 2024 draft. He then had to work with Novotny’s parents and convince him that the OHL was the right path for him to continue to develop as he entered his draft season last year.
“Once we established that Adam would be our No. 1 target should we able to get him in the draft, we had to remember we’re still dealing with a young boy,” said O’Connor. “We sat for four hours in [his] agency’s office with his mom and dad, and we had translated questions back and forth.
“They want to know, is he going to be looked after? Where’s he going to live? So, all these things were my responsibility to answer. His mom didn’t speak the cleanest English at the start, but as the year went on, she learned. She said it’s just the most incredible experience she could have wished for Adam and everything we said and more was delivered. So, it’s being a real success story so far.”
Novotny finished his first season in North America by finishing second on the Petes in scoring, recording 34 goals and 65 points in 58 games. He helped lead Peterborough to fourth place in the Eastern Conference with a 40-24-4 record but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in six games by the North Bay Battalion.
O’Connor recognized the challenges the Novotny went through and has marvelled at his growth and maturity since coming to Peterborough.
“Adam is a very mature, smart kid and a fantastic young man. He’s been an absolute pleasure to work with every day,” said O’Connor. “[He] is from a very small town in Czechia [named Kobylice], and only 300 people live there. Obviously, he’s played in the city, but he’s predominantly grown up in a very rural, what we call a village almost, in Europe.
“Coming out here to Peterborough, it’s a lot bigger city, so it was definitely an adjustment. After talking with his mom and dad, we established the type of family background that he would like to get him settled and established. His billets, the Fisher family, are fantastic people who took him in with open arms and his billet mom and his mother became very close.”
Prior to joining the Petes, Novotny played three seasons as part of Mountfield HK’s organization in Czechia’s top league and played at the highest level as a 16- and 17-year-old against grown men.
During the 2024-25 campaign, he recorded a goal and three points in 41 games while playing limited minutes and added two goals in the playoffs.
For most European players coming to North America to play for the first time, the biggest adjustment is the smaller ice surface. But for Novotny, adjusting to an increase in ice time and a larger role on his team was just as important.
“I think the biggest adjustment for him was the jump in ice time,” said O’Connor. “He came from a very high-standard pro league, but that’s very limited minutes, which is all he was going to get at that age. I think his confidence grew as a hockey player [here] because he went from very limited minutes, which was, I think, a little bit frustrating for him.
“He also realized the physical intensity of the OHL because it’s a development part of going to the NHL. It’s how quickly people close you down, how quickly people are on you, especially when you’re a talented player.”
One of the main things that NHL teams draft for, outside of their on-ice play, is the character of the prospect as part of building a good organizational culture. After bottoming out last season, this was something the Canucks were focused on.
The Canucks were praised for bringing in character guys like Malhotra and Novotny at the draft and O’Connor describes Novotny’s team-first mentality as one of the reasons why.
“Adam’s a top point scorer and sometimes with top point scorers, they can be very focused on themselves. That’s just natural,” said O’Connor. “We saw early on in the season that whenever one of our younger guys, or someone who is in and out of the lineup scores, he literally leaps off the bench and goes after the guy. He’s so happy for his teammates.
“He’s got such a great heart in him that he’s so pleased with anyone’s success, especially someone who doesn’t get a great opportunity to create offence. He’s a phenomenal teammate and the first guy to congratulate a guy who blocks a shot. He looks at all the small details and he gets it right. I see him as a future leader in his professional career.”
Novotny signed his three-year, entry-level contract with the Canucks in August, and the organization will ultimately have the final say on where he plays next season.
The Petes would love to have him back for the 2026-27 campaign and O’Connor believes that Novotny feels like he has some unfinished business after the team’s early playoff exit last year.
“I think it would make sense for him to play another year in junior and develop,” said O’Connor. “He’s only been away from home for one year and it was a year of a lot of changes. There were a lot of positive things, but I don’t think there’s a particular rush with him. I think he could do one more year to completely adjust to the North American lifestyle and everything that goes with it.
“He had a fantastic first year in the OHL, but we obviously didn’t do so well in the playoffs, which really hurt him a lot. He really took that personally. I think he would like an opportunity to redeem himself in the playoffs. We’re going to have a strong team in the East, and we’ll be making a push for another championship for sure. Obviously, we would love to have Adam at the front and centre of that.”
