NHL announces host city for 2026 draft

The NHL officially announced the Buffalo Sabres will host the 2026 draft.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, along with Sabres owner Terry Pegula and team COO Pete Guelli, made the announcement on Monday ahead of Buffalo’s clash with the Florida Panthers.

‘I look forward to both the atmosphere and significance of hosting the NHL draft in Buffalo,’ Pegula said. ‘Being able to share in that excitement with our fans and fans around the league is a unique opportunity.’

This will be the fourth time Buffalo hosts the NHL draft.

Buffalo last hosted the event in 2016. The Toronto Maple Leafs owned the first overall pick for that draft and selected center Auston Matthews.

This time around, among the top prospects who could be the first overall pick in the 2026 draft are Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg. McKenna leads North American skaters in NHL Central Scouting’s mid-season rankings that were also revealed on Monday. Stenberg, meanwhile, leads the International skaters.

The 2026 draft is set to be decentralized and will take place from June 26 to 27.

Instead of the traditional format in which each NHL organization has a table at the venue and works the draft in person, executives will make their decisions and draft picks from their home markets for the second straight year.

Last year’s decentralized draft in Los Angeles received mixed reviews, particularly because of how long the first round took. With the first round of the draft lasting well over three-and-a-half hours, the league is set to make changes for the upcoming event.

In 2025, when a player was drafted, they’d be ushered by Bettman into a separate room where they would chat on a virtual call with the respective team’s front office. That will be removed for this summer’s draft, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

Players would also be required to go through a handful of interviews with media outlets after being selected. This time, there will only be one interviewer for the drafted players instead of two or three.

The league is also looking into changing the layout in which the prospects sit in the venue to make the walk-up to the stage shorter, Friedman reported.

These changes are supposed to make the event smoother and less time-consuming.

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