2026 NHL Draft Odds, Picks & Predictions: Best Bets for Friday Night

• The 2026 NHL Draft goes Friday night from KeyBank Center in Buffalo after a wild week of trades
• Gavin McKenna is a lock at No. 1, but the chaos behind him has opened up some plus-money value
• Read below for my NHL Draft odds, picks, predictions and best bets for Friday at FanDuel

We’re hours away from the 2026 NHL Draft, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a board move this much in the final week. Brady Tkachuk to Florida, William Eklund to Ottawa, Bowen Byram to Chicago for the fourth pick, and the deals haven’t stopped coming.

All that movement is where the value lives. Toronto takes McKenna at No. 1, and that’s settled, but once the Sharks are on the clock at No. 2, the rest of the NHL Draft odds turn into a guessing game. That’s the kind of board worth betting.

I went through the mock drafts and landed on three NHL Draft picks whose prices haven’t caught up to where these prospects are projected to land. Here’s where I see the most value before the Leafs go on the clock Friday night.

NHL Draft Odds and Best Bets

Those are the three NHL Draft bets I’m backing on Friday, all sitting right around even money or better. I break down the full case for every pick below.

NHL Draft odds as of June 26 at NHL betting apps. Shop the top prediction markets to bet on Friday’s draft.

NHL Draft Odds: No. 1 Pick

There’s no drama at the top of the NHL Draft odds. McKenna sits at a 98% chance to go first to Toronto on Kalshi, which makes it about as close to a done deal as the board gets. No other prospect cracks 2%.

The Leafs reportedly told McKenna at the combine he’s their guy. He put up 51 points in 36 games at Penn State as a 17-year-old and slides right next to Auston Matthews down the road. Lock him in and move on to the spots that actually pay.

NHL Draft Prediction: Caleb Malhotra to Buffalo at No. 4

My favorite NHL Draft prediction is all about the cascade. Stenberg looks locked in at No. 2 after San Jose dealt Eklund to Ottawa for the ninth pick. The Sharks grab their future running mate for Macklin Celebrini, then fix the blueline at 9.

That pushes the dominoes to Vancouver at No. 3. I think the Canucks take Chase Reid, the top defenseman in the class. They already have Filip Hronek and Marcus Pettersson locked up, plus Zeev Buium from the Quinn Hughes trade, so the blueline isn’t a screaming need, but Reid is too good to pass.

If Vancouver grabs Reid, Malhotra slides to Buffalo at No. 4. The Sabres need a center, and the top one in a thin class would be right there. At -105, that’s a 51.2% implied chance on a guy I think lands there more often than not.

The whole bet hinges on the Canucks taking Reid over Malhotra at 3. Yes, I’m rooting for Vancouver to pass on the new head coach’s son to cash my ticket, and no, I don’t feel bad about it. Reid’s the best defenseman in the class, and that’s an easier dinner-table conversation than it sounds. I’ll play it to -120.

NHL Draft Pick: Malte Gustafsson Top 10

Gustafsson isn’t the flashy pick, and that’s the point. He’s a 6-foot-4 Swede with a defense-first game who logged real SHL minutes for HV71. Teams love that shutdown projectability even when the highlights are quiet.

The spot that makes this work is San Jose at No. 9. The Sharks finished 30th in goals against last season and need help on the back end now. A lot of mock drafts point to Daxon Rudolph, but Rudolph reads more like a project, and I think Grier wants something closer to NHL-ready after just missing the playoffs.

The NHL Draft odds back me up here, too. FanDuel shaded Gustafsson’s 10.5 draft-position prop to the Under, so the book sees a real top-10 shot. Even money at +100 on a player who keeps climbing boards is the value I want.

NHL Draft Bet: Viggo Bjorck Inside the Top Six

To wrap up my NHL Draft picks, I’m going to the smartest player in the class. Bjorck would be in the top-five talk if he were half a ruler taller. The 5-foot-9 center ran Sweden’s gold-medal line at the World Juniors and held his own in the SHL at 17.

Calgary at No. 6 is the spot. After adding Simon Nemec, the Flames are set on the left side with Nemec and Zayne Parekh, which points them toward a center. Bjorck is the favorite at that pick, and his position line sits at 6.5 with the Under at -110, about a 52.4% implied chance he’s gone.

The only thing dragging him down is the measuring stick, and we’ve all watched undersized centers like Logan Stankoven make teams look silly for waiting. The skill and the motor are top-five tools. With Winnipeg, Seattle and Calgary all needing help up the middle, he’s my last bet to close out the NHL Draft odds.