Yaroslav Bryzgalov

September 2026 – Yaroslav Bryzgalov is a big Belarusian power-playmaker the Vancouver Canucks selected 97th overall, an overager who forced his way onto draft boards after going unpicked in 2025. His 2025-26 breakout with the Medicine Hat Tigers was a genuine surprise: 13 goals and 42 assists for 55 points in 64 games with a plus-37, then 14 points in 15 playoff games. The game is built on distribution, not finishing. He is a relentless forechecker who delivers heavy contact and a smart passer who zips pucks through traffic, spins them off the wall, and manipulates defenders with look-offs and shot-passes to open cross-slot lanes. The problem, and the reason he lasted to the fourth round, is skating. He is an upright, narrow skater with limited agility, and his projection hinges on fixing that or finding ways to play fast without it. He heads to Merrimack of the NCAA for 2026-27 on a long developmental road. For fantasy he is a deep-league monitor, a third-line-projection playmaker with real vision but real limitations, so file him away and watch whether his skating and scoring translate against older college competition. Andrew Epps