2026 NHL Draft chat with Craig Button

With the NHL Draft now less than a month away, the Winnipeg Jets are facing a major decision with the eighth overall pick. Should they stay put and add another top prospect to the system, or use the selection as a trade chip to help a team ready to contend right now? As part of our continuing draft coverage leading up to this summer’s event in Buffalo, I caught up with TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button to get his thoughts on what the Jets should do. One of hockey’s most respected evaluators, Button believes Winnipeg should seriously consider moving the pick in an effort to strengthen a roster built to win immediately.

A few weeks ago, during the Draft Lottery we found out that the Jets would be picking eighth overall. You said at that time, they should trade the pick as part of a package to bring in a 2C, do you still feel that way?

Button: Absolutely, I think that nothing has changed for the Winnipeg Jets with respect to the type of players and the type of team they have, and most importantly, what they need, and it's not coming from the draft, and I believe that every stone should be turned over, every effort should be made to explore the opportunities, options to get a second line center, every single one now, if you've exhausted them all again. Well, then I guess you got to go and make the eighth pick, but I don't think the Winnipeg's objective should be the eighth pick. And when you have Hellebuyck and you have Morrissey, you have Scheifele and you have Connor and you have Lowry and you have Vilardi, and this really good team that completely fell short this year, and they completely fell short because of because of areas in their lineup that were that were missing, and there's no other way to put it, missing. So now the opportunity exists in a different way, and I don't think that a player you're going to draft in this year's draft is going to help you this year, next year, maybe not even the year after.

Obviously as a draft and develop organization, trying to win the Stanley Cup has forced the Jets to give up a big part of their future by trading draft picks. Does Kevin Cheveldayoff have a choice here other than to give up the future (2026 first round pick) again to go for the Cup?

Button: In an ideal world, you'd like to keep both. Guess what? The ideal world doesn't exist. And there's too many examples of it, whether it be Kevin Cheveldayoff’s former team in Chicago, they found themselves in a spot because of their focus with their really good players, whether it be the Vegas Golden Knights, whether it be the Dallas Stars, whether it be the Colorado Avalanche, that's your reality. I love what Nathan McKinnon said post Olympics, and I'm going to imagine he's probably going to say the same thing post Stanley Cup playoffs. You can't fight reality. This is the reality for the Winnipeg Jets. Yeah, right there in front of you, it's right there in terms of going after it. And if you don't go after it, then then you're settling, and you're settling for something. I think that what will always leave you falling short.

Pierre LeBrun reported recently that the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks are open to trading their second and fourth overall picks respectively. What would the cost be to move into those spots?

Button: I don't think the second and fourth picks, whoever they are, are ready to come and help the Winnipeg Jets, either. This isn't Macklin Celebrini, Matthew Schaefer coming into the draft. These players have really good potential and in time will be really good players, but Jack Hughes, who was the first overall pick, took him a good year and a half before he was able to find his footing in the league. Forget about becoming a player that was really helping the team, move forward. That was the first overall pick, just because of where he was at that particular moment in time. The cost? Okay, you know why high picks don't get traded? It’s because the teams at the high picks ask for exorbitant prices.

Should the Jets end up holding onto their pick, you had them taking Boston University centre Tynan Lawrence. What do you see in him?

Button: Well, I see a really well-balanced second line center, somebody that can give you offense and give you defense, but he's not the only one. There's some really good centres, I love Viggo Bjorck, I have him very high in the draft, but I've seen the draft unfold a number of times where a player that might not be as tall kind of gets a little bit pushed aside, and you think about Cole Perfetti, and I'll use Cole as a perfect example, he went 10th in the draft. He was a really good player coming up, and teams picking ahead of the Jets that year in the draft. ‘Well, Cole, like, he's not big, he's not this. Go look at some of the players who got picked before him, guys that weren't that aren't even NHL players. So, could that happen to Viggo Bjorck, right? I think Tynan offers a lot, Alexander Command, Oliver Suvanto. Now, I'm not one to say you should just take a centre there, like if you had somebody that you think is a better player as a winger or as a defenseman, take them, but if it's close and you, you want to start to work within specific areas of your prospect pool that you want to fill, that's when I would say, okay, Tynan Lawrence, or some of those other centers fit.

Let’s go back to a few years ago, you had Colby Barlow (who the Jets took 18^th overall) as one of you top rated players in that draft. He just finished his first year of pro hockey, how did you see his development path unfolding?

Button: It's not so much what I saw in terms of his development path, it's about understanding that each player's development path can be different. Colby had some issues with his back that I think impacted him. So, the example I will describe here is Gabe Vilardi. Gabe Vilardi was a high draft pick (11^th overall, 2017), he had some issues early on in his career with some back issues. You're developing, you're maturing physically, structurally and now you watch Gabe play, and Gabe’s a really good player, and because he's healthy, and everything came together maybe a little bit later than he would have liked, forget about what the team is like. I think Colby can be a very similar type of player to Gabe Vilardi. I've watched Colby for too long, his leadership. Yeah, you can look at the numbers and say he struggled, and why isn't he in the NHL right away? Well, every player's path is different, but I still believe, and even watching Colby this year, I still see things in his game that were evident when he was drafted in the first round, that I think make him a good player, and I think you just have to be patient, and that's why I use Gabe Vilardi as an example, I guess what I would call growing pains. I have a common refrain, I call them the three natural laws of maturity, physical, mental, and emotional, and you can't speed them up.