When Hnat Domenichelli finished his prep for the 2026 WHL trade deadline, there was one name at the top of his list: Mathis Preston.And so on Jan. 5, the then-Vancouver Giants general manager took his swing, dealing two players and a 2026 first-round pick to Spokane for Preston and a 2029 second-rounder.“It was a big trade,” Domenichelli told The Athletic, “but I just really like him as a player. He has qualities that you can’t really teach.”Those things that you can’t teach, Domenichelli says, are Preston’s combination of skill and hockey IQ.“You have to know where to go on the ice, and you have to think to create offense, and that’s what I look for. And he seems like he’s a step ahead, and that’s why he’ll create offense at every level he plays at because he knows where to go without the puck to get open (and) he knows how to play the give-and-go game,” he said.“He’s really good on his edges and both sides of his stick. He can make plays on his backhand, he can make plays on his forehand, he can score from the outside on a shot on a power play, he can drive through five-on-five through the neutral zone and drive play. Those are the things that when players have it, that’s what gets scouts excited.”And yet, scouts aren’t as high on Preston today, after he was viewed for a long time as one of the very top prospects in the 2026 NHL Draft.In a survey of opinions on Preston from scouts at the end of his season, feelings were mixed.One NHL scouting director called him a first-round talent but couched it with “It’s a lot of individual skill, which is a really nice way of saying he is super selfish.” Another called him a “very borderline” first-round pick for his team.“Super skilled, like the skating, needs some workers on his line to do the heavy lifting,” that director said. “But real good at finding open ice away from traffic for scoring. He can finish.”About 18 months ago, Preston stood on the ice at Progressive Auto Sales Arena in Sarnia, Ontario, with a gold medal around his neck.He’d just won it with Canada White at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, finishing with six goals and seven points in five games. After feeling he was snakebitten in the first two games of the tournament, he scored in each of the quarterfinal, semifinal and final, including a hat trick in the semi.“I’m a big-time player, so I show up in the big games,” he said then.Nearby on the ice, the team’s head coach, Mathieu Turcotte, lauded his star player’s speed, shot, hockey IQ and offensively dangerous game.“He’s one of the guys with the most swagger,” Turcotte said. “All the snipers, all the high-end scorers have that, and he’s definitely got it.”At the time, Preston was viewed as one of the very best prospects in the ’08 age group. He was the CSSHL U15 MVP, registering 45 goals and 81 points in 26 games in the sports school circuit in his WHL draft year. He’d played for Canada at the Youth Olympics, scoring four goals and six points in four games there. The Spokane Chiefs drafted him with the third pick in the 2023 WHL Prospects Draft after the Prince Albert Raiders, who held the first two selections, couldn’t get assurances from him that he’d report — in part because Spokane was closer to home in Penticton, B.C. As a 15-year-old, he’d played up with the Okanagan Hockey Academy’s U18 team with his older brother Nathan, a goalie, and then scored four goals in his first five WHL games. He was even a multi-sport athlete who’d played lacrosse, tennis, golf, basketball and competed in junior triathlons.