The Philadelphia Flyers have lately been targeting centers with their first-round picks. General manager Danny Briere even said recently that center is still a position of need for them in their organization, so they might just do the same thing for the 2026 NHL Draft. But, what if they decide to go with the other positional need?
Sure, the current NHL roster has three very capable top-four defensemen and the pipeline has some interesting names like Oliver Bonk, David Jiricek, and someone further behind in their developmental path but is still intriguing, like Spencer Gill. But the pool for potential difference-makers on the blue line is fairly shallow and the Flyers using their first-round pick at 21st overall this year to get a defenseman could certainly be worth it.
In that case, here are five blueliners who we think could be considered the best player available, or at least make perfect sense for what the Flyers are trying to build.
Juho Piiparinen, RD
We’re not starting off with a bang, but just a solid bet. Juho Piiparinen is perhaps the most well-rounded defenseman available in this range with solid skating, solid stopping ability, solid size with 6-foot-2 and 205-pound frame, and a defensive toolchest that most hockey players envy. The Finnish guard just knows how to be in position and stop scoring chances before the opposing player even starts to think about creating one.
There’s nothing flashy to his game whatsoever, or really all that offensive. But, he did already play the majority of his season in Liiga for Tappara, facing the toughest competition he could in Finland. In 29 games, he earned just three assists so he wasn’t able to show his offense in the top division, but in the 15 games Piiparinen had in the junior level, he scored one goal and had 13 points.
There’s clearly something there offensively but it might not be super projectable for the time being. And maybe the most impressive thing is that he played that (almost) entire season in Liiga while just 17 years old, since he does have a August 10 birthday and is one of the youngest defenders in the draft class.
Ryan Lin, RD
Ryan Lin is an interesting defenseman. He’s not massive at 5-foot-11 so that alone might prevent the Flyers from wanting to draft him, but he just has above-average tools in every category you can think of and really has some fine detail work to his game. The right-handed blueliner put up 14 goals and 57 points in 53 games for the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, but beyond the actual production, there is a strong defensive foundation powered by plus-plus skating and hockey sense. He isn’t a small offensive defenseman that turns the puck over almost every single shift or whose coach is just trying to get his offense to outweigh the poor defensive play. He’s an all-around, projectable player that uses all of those soft skills to cover the ice to impact the game overall.
“Worst case scenario, you get Dylan DeMelo, best case scenario, something close to Lane Hutson. Ryan Lin’s probably somebody that NHL guys have probably seen 40 times in the last two years, and kids like that get beat up on too much. I’m not betting against this kid,” an NHL scout said via the 2026 Elite Prospects Draft Guide.
That’s the player we’re talking about. And even getting someone like DeMelo, whose on-ice impacts have regularly been very good throughout his career and could have been a No. 4 on just about any team when he was in his prime, at 21st overall is a big-time win.
Again, the height might just prevent Philadelphia from wanting to take him but it would ultimately be a mistake. If he was just a couple hockey pucks taller, we’re sure he would be more in consideration for a top-15 pick, so this is the chance the Flyers need to take.
Xavier Villeneuve, LD
While Lin is the smaller blueliner that doesn’t have a whole lot of risk to his game and it’s just a matter of him bringing all of that detail work up to the NHL and have it close to the same, Xavier Villeneuve is that prototypical undersized defenseman that teams sometimes steer away from. In the same vein of why Lane Hutson was a late second-round pick and even the Montreal Canadiens passed over him multiple times before selecting him, Villeneuve could slip and fall lower than his skill level should suggest, and we are personally begging the Flyers to just take this risk and try to develop him.
There are just so many similarities to some of the best offensive defensemen in the NHL today — Villeneuve was getting Hutson comparisons almost two years ago for just how fluid he moved on the ice and is able to create scoring chances with some gravity on the blue line.
He doesn’t have a perfect game, of course. His QMJHL playoffs this past season did not go so smoothly and that’s why some mock drafts have him possibly slipping into the final picks of the first round or even the second, but after the fact it was revealed that he had a hip injury that was causing him to not skate as well as he can and that can basically take his whole game off course.
And to make the Hutson comparables even more spooky, Villeneuve is heading to Boston University this fall. He will be getting the same exact development treatment as both Lane and Cole Hutson did for the Terriers and it seems like he should logically follow a similar path.
But there are scouts out there that believe Villeneuve is farther along than Lane Hutson was during his draft year. Lane had a whole whack of defensive issues while in the National Development Program and why he was seen as a boom-or-bust type of pick who ultimately just developed into the 99th percentile of him. Villeneuve has less of that and it seriously is not all that impossible that he is going out and doing a similar thing in a similar environment a few years from now.
I am pleading at this point — Villeneuve would give the Flyers everything they want and what they need from their blue line right now.
Tommy Bleyl, RD
If the Flyers can’t get Villeneuve, or feel a little bit scared at the 5-foot-11 height, what about someone who is measuring at 5-foot-11.25?
Tommy Bleyl is another option for the Flyers at 21st overall where they can get an explosive, offensive defenseman. And since this isn’t the deepest of drafts, there might not be another opportunity to get a player that is this skilled at any other point in the seven rounds. At some point, you just need to take the bet instead of going with another boring, projectable talent and Bleyl is a home-run swing.
The American, right-handed defenseman is seen as a contender to Villeneuve for the best skater in the entire draft class and has that Hutson/Quinn Hughes-esque ability to fool defenders along the blue line and completely evade them, freeing up space to then create scoring chances for his team. That is what led him to scoring 81 points in 63 games for the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats this past season.
Bleyl made the jump from playing prep school hockey in New York and instead of continuing down the USHL path, decided to head up north to play in Canadian Juniors with the new CHL-NCAA agreement in place. This past season was his first full season playing in any sort of actual competitive league and clearly put all his tools on display for the world to see.
For some reason, Bleyl doesn’t read to me as a prospect who is as projectable as Villeneuve. Both certainly have a hill to climb to end up on an NHL blue line, but just personally, it seems like Bleyl has a longer way to go and is less likely to see his offense really hit in the best league in the world. So often his goals and points are created by him going end-to-end on a Bobby Orr-esque way, that will just not be possible in the NHL. There are poor QMJHL defenders who are future real estate agents getting turnstiled by Bleyl or just not even being a quarter as fast as anyone at the pro level would be when attacking Bleyl as he storms into the zone.
Villeneuve is just a little bit more sneaky and more of a small-area player that can absorb some pressure just slightly better, to my eyes.
But still, if you’re talking about a 21st overall pick and going between Bleyl and someone who is a future bottom-six center but will never be anything more than that, then you might as well take the swing.
William Hakansson, LD
While we’re on a streak of offensive defensemen, how about someone who is certainly not that? It might be best to bookmark this list with two of the top young European defensive defensemen in this draft class, just to get the Flyers’ attention if they don’t want to deal with any names who are in the middle.
William Hakansson stands at almost 6-foot-5 and is an extremely solid skater with excellent poise on the puck and is able to control a breakout fairly well. He started his season playing the majority of his games in the SHL for Lulea, went to the World Juniors to play a solid role on that gold medal-winning team, and then was loaned to the second-division HockeyAllsvenskan for a couple months before eventually returning to the SHL. Basically, Hakansson was either playing top-level pro hockey or in a pressured environment like the World Juniors.
You won’t get much offense from him — even during his Allsvenskan stint he earned just four points in 16 games — but Hakansson just screams a defensemen who will end up on the second pair of a very good NHL team. Could we compare him to someone like Niklas Hjalmarsson on those dynasty Chicago Blackhawks team? Maybe he won’t be exactly that kind of impact player, but stylistically he is basically the same and should be in a similar role if he makes the NHL.
If there is any improvement in his play with the puck, then we can say that he will be the type of defensemen that almost every Stanley Cup contender is looking to add at the trade deadline. So why not draft that type of guy in the late first round? It might not be the most exciting, but if he were to be a balancing act to a David Jiricek, or be this tall and lanky duo with Spencer Gill, or just even be the No. 5 on a very good Flyers team for over a decade; the pick will be worth it.
The Flyers have a big opportunity to improve the outlook of their blue line at 21st overall, now it’s just up to them to maybe address it over getting another projectable, future third-line center.
