Paul O’Hagan Sees Depth in 2026 Ohl Draft Class
Paul O’Hagan sees the 2026 ohl draft as strong at the top and deep throughout, with enough quality that the Sudbury Wolves could still find value at No. 5. The director of Ontario scouting for Neutral Zone said there is also a lot of solid defencemen in the class, a profile that could shape how teams approach a 15-round selection process next week.
He pointed to the top tier as especially crowded. O’Hagan said, “There’s a few at the top who we could see them going easily in a different order,” and added, “I would say the players in the next wave are fairly even.”
Daley Leads Neutral Zone
Neutral Zone ranked Drew Daley as its top OHL prospect overall, even though the right-shooting defenceman from Buffalo is expected to play in the United States National Development Program in 2026-27. That gives the class a rare look: the highest-rated player on the list may not be the one available to OHL teams when the draft opens.
Daley sits at the head of a group that includes Tanner Adams, Adrian Sgro, Logan Prud’homme, Kane Cloutier, Kash Kwajah, Max Franssen and Matthew Zilinski. O’Hagan described the mix this way: “It’s a mix of a couple big forwards, a strong defender and some real slick centremen.”
Sudbury at No. 5
The Wolves enter the draft with the fifth-overall pick, and O’Hagan said some of those players could still be on the board when Sudbury makes that selection. That is the practical edge in a class he views as deep: top-end names may move in different orders, but the next wave is close enough that a team drafting early can still land a high-value player.
Adams, a forward at The Hill Academy and a Timmins native, played some games this season with his hometown NOJHL club. Sgro, a Vaughan Kings defenceman and Alliston product, helped his team win a Greater Toronto Hockey League U16 championship this year. Prud’homme, an Upper Canada College forward from Ottawa, already stands 6-foot-7.
Cloutier, a Vaughan forward from Oakville, is the son of former NHL goaltender Dan Cloutier and was dynamite for the GTHL champs all season. Kwajah, a Toronto Junior Canadiens forward from Etobicoke, was the leading scorer and Player of the Year in the GTHL U16 loop and an OHL Cup all-star. Franssen, an Upper Canada defenceman and the son of former OHLer Aaron Fransen, collected 89 points in 69 games from the blueline, while Zilinski, a Mississauga Senators forward and Cambridge native, is among the most offensively gifted players in the class.
Draft Board Pressure
Those skaters are all among the top tier in Neutral Zone’s cumulative top 500 rankings for the 2026 draft, published last week. For the Wolves, that means the job at No. 5 is less about waiting for the class to thin out and more about choosing among a group that still looks close enough to force a hard decision.
The 2026 OHL Priority Selection arrives next week, and O’Hagan’s read suggests the value may not stop near the top of the board. If the first few names come off in a different order than expected, Sudbury’s pick could still land in the middle of a strong tier rather than the end of one.
