The Vancouver Canucks ended Day 1 of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft on the clock.While the draft lottery balls may have been unkind to Vancouver in early May, the benefits of finishing in 32nd place in the league this season still reverberate throughout the draft order.Nowhere is that advantage sharper than at this very moment. The Canucks are on the clock, and will remain on the clock until Day 2 of the NHL Draft kicks off in Buffalo on Saturday morning.“We have the 33rd pick,” Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson summarized following Day 1 of the Draft on Friday. “We’ve got some time tonight to mill on that, which you don’t always get, which is great. We’ll talk through it and be excited to make the first pick tomorrow.”So who are the five best players still available for the Canucks to consider with the top pick of the second round — and, potentially, with their other second-round pick at No. 41 overall?Mathis Preston, RW, Vancouver Giants (WHL)An explosive athlete with some of the best pure puck skills in the draft class, Penticton, B.C., native Mathis Preston is a player the Canucks have been closely linked to throughout the pre-draft process.Preston is the home-run cut at this stage of the draft. A fringe first-round player who was a coin flip to even be available as low as 33rd overall, he is now overwhelmingly likely to be among the first five names called when Day 2 of the 2026 NHL Entry Draft gets underway.Malhotra to play for his father in VancouverThe Athletic Hockey ShowThe Vancouver Giants winger dealt with some significant injuries throughout his draft season, which held his production back somewhat. He might be one of the three best pure athletes in this draft class. There are flaws in his game — in particular, his physical game is widely viewed by amateur scouts as being somewhat behind the curve relative to this age group. That might limit his effectiveness both on the wall, and in working through contact to transport the puck to the guts of the offensive zone.On the other hand, because of his through-the-roof skill level and elite athleticism relative to his peers, if Preston is able to put it all together as he develops, he has the tools and the hockey skill to possess legitimate superstar-level ceiling. And he’s probably the final player still remaining on the board in this draft class for whom that’s true.The base rate, in truth, is that Preston may end up being on that Daniel Sprong, Jakub Vrana continuum. A safe bet to score goals as a professional player, at the very least, whether he rounds out his complete game or not as he matures.If the Canucks are going to bet on their ability to develop players, however, then Preston is the best clay still on the board in this draft class. If it all comes together, Preston can be a legitimate top-line player.William Håkansson, LHD, Luleå HF (SHL)Big, burly 6-foot-4 shutdown defender William Håkansson is probably the best pure value remaining on the board.The Swedish defender has been a mainstay pedigree player among his age group in the Swedish national team program, and while he’s relatively old for this draft class, it’s worth noting that he made his SHL debut as a draft-minus two player (which is exceptionally rare, especially for a defender) and logged regular shifts in the SHL as an 18-year-old. That Håkansson has been promoted so quickly by his SHL club team at such a precocious developmental stage tends to be a very strong indicator of his calibre as an all-around defender.Håkansson, however, really hasn’t produced much in the way of offence at any stage of his development. He’s got the athletic tools and the traits to be a valuable two-way defender, and his accelerated progression to the professional ranks in Sweden suggests that he’s got a very high floor and a high probability of eating real minutes at the NHL level as he matures. His consistent lack of production, however, suggests strongly that his ceiling will be limited, the sort of profile that is likely to tap out as a second-pair defender at the NHL level, even if he hits a 95th percentile developmental outcome.Niklas Aaram-Olsen, RW/LW, Örebro HK (SHL)One of most explosive pure skaters in this draft class, Norwegian winger Niklas Aaram-Olsen was exceptionally productive at the Swedish U20 level in his draft year, was dominant against his peers in international competition and was called upon to dress at the SHL level 16 teams as a 17-year-old — which is bullish, even if Aaram-Olsen never recorded a point in professional competition.The Canucks, to this point in the draft, have mined legitimate scoring profiles with their first two picks. Malhotra and Novotny are skilled players in their own right, Malhotra because of his playmaking in particular, and Novotny because of his shot and ability to work the puck into dangerous scoring areas.Still, if Vancouver wanted to target potential star-level skill in the second round, Aaram-Olsen’s combination of production and traits is among the highest end of the players remaining on the board.Xavier Villeneuve, LHD, Blainville-Boisbriand (QMJHL)An incredibly athletic, dynamic and deceptive left-handed blueliner, Xavier Villeneuve was a productive defender in the QMJHL this past season, and there are NHL amateur scouts who prefer the Lane Hutson-coded shiftiness in Villeneuve’s game to that of Tommy Bleyl — who was selected late in the first round by the Nashville Predators on Friday.Villeneuve is 5-foot-10, however, and left-handed, which gives him the sort of profile that teams are generally very hesitant to draft, trade for, promote through the ranks to the NHL level and pay in free agency. In other words, Villeneuve will have to be a star performer if he’s ever going to be a value for the Canucks — or any other team that drafts him.At this stage of the draft, however, Villeneuve is on a very short list of players remaining with real star potential. For what it’s worth, unlike some of the other names on this list, I haven’t heard much connecting the Canucks to Villeneuve throughout the draft process (which isn’t to say that they’re not interested, but any hint that they might be has escaped me to this point).Casey Mutryn, RW, USNDTP (USHL)Casey Mutryn is a big, burly winger with plus wheels who captained Team USA at the U18 tournament.On Friday night, in the first draft overseen by Johnson, the new Canucks general manager, Vancouver seemed to prioritize character, competitiveness and size with both of their first-round selections. While Mutryn would certainly be in line with the sort of ethos that induced Vancouver to select Malhotra and Novotny with the third- and 24th-overall selections respectively, following the draft, Johnson intimated that the team may make some more outside-of-the-box selections on Day 2.“It’s no secret that I like to play fast, I like size and character is massive for me,” Johnson said. “So we’ll continue along that. I think at times there is going to be opportunities to take some swings on players that don’t, that they’re not all going to fit that mould.“That’s something we will talk about tonight. We have (pick) 33 and (pick) 41, we’ve got an opportunity to maybe think outside the box a little bit, take some swings at some different player types, different positions, but we’ll be excited and ready to go tomorrow.”Mutryn’s scoring profile leaves me wanting in analyzing him as a potential top-40 selection. Especially given some of the profiles that remain on the board in this draft class.The Canucks, however, have been tied to Mutryn throughout the pre-draft process, and given how high some evaluators are on his combination of speed and size, and the ceaseless motor to leverage those tools, if the Canucks want to land him, they may not be able to wait around until they’re back on the clock at 41.