Vancouver Canucks 2024 Draft Retrospective
- Kyle Welsford
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Hindsight is 20/20
Coming off a devastating second-round exit to the Edmonton Oilers, the Vancouver Canucks 2024 Draft opened with a team pushing all-in rather than stockpiling for the future. The first-round pick went to Calgary in the Elias Lindholm trade that January, a rental move at the deadline that also sent out Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, and Joni Jurmo. The second-rounder was even older business, dealt to Chicago back in October 2022 in the Jason Dickinson-for-Riley Stillman swap, a straightforward cap dump. A fifth-round pick went to Toronto in October of 2023 for depth forward Sam Lafferty.
Not every move cost them capital, though. That December, Vancouver flipped Jack Studnicka to San Jose for Nick Cicek and a sixth-round pick. By the time the Canucks walked into the draft, they were down to just five picks on the board.
Melvin Fernström: 93rd Overall/3rd Round - RW
Fernström was Vancouver's first selection of the class, taken 93rd overall out of Örebro's junior system in Sweden. He was seen as a skilled, SHL-ready winger with a heavy shot and advanced offensive instincts, the kind of value teams hope falls to the third round. Scouts liked his hockey sense and release more than his skating, which was already flagged as a question mark he'd need to answer against pro competition.
Drafted in June 2024, Fernström was already gone by January 2025, traded to Pittsburgh as part of the return package in the Marcus Pettersson deal, alongside Danton Heinen, Vincent Desharnais, and a conditional first. He signed a three-year ELC with the Penguins that summer after leading SHL rookies with 17 points in 48 games. The follow-up season was a rough one: just four points in 36 SHL games in 2025-26 before he was pulled off Örebro's roster in February and reassigned to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He bounced back in a big way there, scoring 8 points in 14 games, and was back with Pittsburgh at their development camp this past July, so the organization hasn't given up on him yet. He's expected to play full-time in the AHL next season, his first real crack at North American pro hockey. Still just 20, Fernström's got time on his side. He's locked into his ELC through the 2028-29 season, giving Pittsburgh three more years to figure out whether that SHL scoring touch translates once he settles into a full pro schedule. He profiles as a solid depth piece for now, but with that much team control left, it's worth watching whether he carves out NHL games before the deal runs out.
Riley Patterson: 125th Overall/4th Round - C Patterson was drafted in the 4th round, 125th overall, out of the OHL playing for the Barrie Colts, where he'd just put up 62 points as a 17-year-old. He was seen as a versatile, skilled forward who could play center or wing, with a dangerous shot and enough speed to project as a legitimate offensive piece, if the tools ever came together consistently.
They did. Patterson followed his draft year with 59 points in his draft-plus-one season, then was traded out of Barrie last August, landing with Niagara. The change of scenery unlocked him: OHL Player of the Month for December, a move to full-time center, and a career year of 40 goals and 84 points in 60 games, tops among all Canucks prospects. He kept rolling into the playoffs with 8 points in 5 games, earning a late-season call-up to Abbotsford, where he picked up his first professional goal and assist in a four-game cameo.
He's done with junior for good, and he's not shy about his ambitions heading into camp:
"I'm gonna go to main camp and try to make the NHL. Last year was a good year in junior, and it's my goal. I want to stay up at the big club as long as I can and really open some eyes. I think there's a lot of opportunity. It's a young team, so you just got to go out and put your best foot forward every day."
Realistically, he's probably ticketed for a full season in Abbotsford to start, with a late-season call-up a real possibility if he plays the way he finished last year. Let's see what he can do with a full year of AHL hockey under his belt first. Considering where he was picked, Patterson has already exceeded his draft slot. His scoring touch and skating are the real separators here, and watching how that translates over a full season in Abbotsford is going to be a lot of fun.
For a deeper look at Patterson's game, check out our full prospect profile.
Anthony Romani: 162nd Overall/6th Round - RW
Romani was drafted in the 6th round, 162nd overall, courtesy of a sixth-round pick Vancouver had acquired from San Jose that December in the Jack Studnicka trade. He came out of the OHL with North Bay, where he'd just put up 111 points in his draft year. Despite that kind of production, he fell to the sixth round, partly because he was an overage player who'd gone undrafted the year before, and was viewed as a pure shooter whose calling card was an elite release rather than any one dominant physical tool.
His post-draft season was derailed early. An OHL media poll had actually pegged him to lead the league in scoring in 2024-25, and he was tracking that way with 2 goals and 5 points through five games. Then on October 11, he broke his clavicle on a hit in a game against Erie and missed most of the year recovering. North Bay dealt him to Barrie that January, and once healthy, he closed out his junior career with a respectable 35 points in 35 games, solid production for a guy coming off a broken collarbone.
He then used the CHL's new NCAA eligibility rules to skip a return to junior entirely and jump straight to Michigan State for his first NCAA season, trading a bigger role for a much tougher league. It was a slow adjustment on a stacked roster, buried in a bottom-six role early on, but a look at top-six minutes as the year went on helped him find his footing, and he closed out his freshman year with 14 goals and 14 assists for 28 points in 37 games. That release is still the carrying tool: he's a catch-and-shoot and curl-and-drag threat who slows the game down and reads coverage well, with real passing touch to go with it. The concerns are what they were on draft day, mostly perimeter play and a lack of top-end separation speed, the sort of thing that gets exposed as the level keeps climbing.
The NCAA path also buys Vancouver time. Instead of the standard two-year signing window for a CHL pick, Romani's college route stretches the Canucks' rights out as long as four more years, so there's zero pressure on either side to rush a decision.
Now 21, Romani heads back to Michigan State for his sophomore year, projected as part of a genuinely dangerous top line. For a sixth-rounder who beat a serious injury just to get his college career started, this is exactly the kind of swing you want to be still paying off, and it'll be worth watching whether the Canucks look to get him signed once his NCAA season wraps up.
Parker Alcos: 189th Overall/6th Round - RHD
Alcos was drafted in the 6th round, 189th overall, out of the WHL's Edmonton Oil Kings, where he'd posted modest offensive numbers in his draft year, 15 points in 67 games. He was never viewed as an offensive weapon; the appeal was size and reach on the back end, a defence-first project who projected as a shutdown piece if his game filled out.
His draft-plus-one season with Edmonton was more of the same: 13 points in 57 games, solid defensive minutes without much flash. The bigger jump came in his final WHL season. Alcos was dealt from Edmonton to Kelowna partway through the year as the Rockets loaded up to host the Memorial Cup, and the split season ended up being his best yet, 30 points in 63 games between the two stops, nearly doubling his previous career high of 15. He capped it off with a trip to the Memorial Cup itself in a 9-game playoff run with Kelowna.
That offensive spike arrived right as he was leaving major junior for good. In February, Alcos committed to Quinnipiac and the NCAA for 2026-27, joining fellow Canucks prospect
Matthew Lansing. Under the new CBA rules governing CHL players who make that jump, his rights now extend to at least August 2028, buying Vancouver plenty of runway to see how he develops. He'll be just 20 when he steps onto campus, a big defenseman with respectable mobility for his size, still with plenty of physical development ahead of him.
Alcos was at Canucks development camp this summer, and the real test starts once he steps into Quinnipiac's lineup. It'll be worth watching how a defence-first shutdown blueliner who spent his whole career in the WHL holds up against tougher, older competition in the NCAA.
Basile Sansonnens: 221st Overall/7th Round - LHD
Sansonnens was drafted in the 7th round, 221st overall, out of Switzerland, where his draft year amounted to a cup of coffee, four games each with Fribourg-Gotteron and Martigny without registering a point. He was a size-and-structure pick through and through, a big, mobile defenseman who profiled as a defensive project with almost no offensive expectation attached.
His draft-plus-one season saw him cross the Atlantic, landing with Rimouski in the QMJHL for a full 54-game slate, 12 points, and a deep playoff run that included a trip to the 2025 Memorial Cup. From there, he went home to Switzerland for 2025-26, stepping into Lausanne HC's lineup in the Swiss National League as a teenager playing against men. The offensive numbers stayed quiet, just 3 points in 44 games. Still, he was one of only three U20 defensemen in the entire league to play more than 40 games, and he even drew stints on Lausanne's top pairing alongside former Canuck Erik Brännström before his role shrank in the playoffs. He's represented Switzerland at back-to-back World Junior Championships, adding a goal and an assist in 5 games at the 2026 tournament.
The offensive numbers were never the point with this pick, and they still aren't. What matters is a 6-foot-4, 205-pound defenseman who's already winning physical battles against grown men, using an active stick to break up plays, and, according to scouts who've watched him closely, skating better than his reputation suggests. He's still raw with the puck and can get pulled out of structure chasing a hit, but the physical tools already look close to AHL-ready.
He's staying put for another season, back with Lausanne in 2026-27 to keep building against pro competition. A seventh-rounder logging real minutes in a competitive men's league at 19 is exactly the outcome you hope for that late in a draft. NHL consideration is still years away, but the shutdown penalty-killing foundation is already there.
In Retrospect:
No first or second rounder, five picks starting at 93, and this class still turned into more than the Canucks had any right to expect. Of the group, Patterson looks like a legitimate NHL prospect, and don't be surprised if he sees games in Vancouver sooner than people think. Romani isn't far behind on upside, an elite release that you just don't see out of many sixth-round picks, and one that's already translating against older competition in the NCAA.
Down the lineup, Alcos and Sansonnens bring size to a defensive prospect pool that's been thin, even with both still years from the NHL conversation.
Fernström is a different kind of story. He was traded just seven months after Vancouver drafted him, but that's still a decent prospect the Penguins have on their hands, which makes the 93rd overall selection itself solid value, a nod to good scouting from Vancouver's amateur staff, and good work by Kyle Dubas and the Pittsburgh front office to identify him as a worthwhile target in that deal. Either way, a good pick.
Overall, this was quite the draft class, especially considering how little capital the Canucks had to work with.
Grade: B
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