Every team has one: a young player the underlying numbers say is about to jump. We ran all eight Pacific rosters through our model, weighing shot volume, finishing luck, on-ice share and playoff minutes, and gave each pick an honest floor-and-ceiling band. This division made the choice harder than the other three did. Anaheim's problem is picking between three of them. San Jose's answer carries the biggest projection in the series. The most controlling player here is a Vegas rookie almost nobody has heard of. And for the first time, the list includes a goalie, one coming off a 23-29-3 season. Where a pick is thin, we say so.
Anaheim Ducks: Beckett Sennecke
Sennecke put up 60 points in a full 82 games as a 20-year-old, took 197 shots, played 17:27 a night, and added six points in 12 playoff games when the ice got tighter. Anaheim took him third overall in 2024 and heard about it for two years. He answered with one of the great rookie seasons, and the numbers say he was still unlucky. Underneath it he drove play at a 55.3 percent xGF share and finished 5.1 goals below expectation, which is the rare combination of a big rookie year that undersells the player. We project 71 points with an 88 ceiling, the highest in the division. The honest caveat is that he is not even Anaheim's best young forward yet: Leo Carlsson put up 67 points and 11 in 12 playoff games before signing for five years at $18M AAV, and Cutter Gauthier scored 41 goals, though he is still unsigned as a restricted free agent, so that one is not settled. Sennecke opens on the second line with Alex Killorn and Mikael Granlund, a rung below that. On most teams a 20-year-old coming off 60 points is the whole story. In Anaheim he might be the third-best answer, which tells you what the Ducks have built.
Calgary Flames: Dustin Wolf
Wolf saved 5 goals above expected last season, the best mark of any starter in the Pacific, and went 23-29-3 with a .899 save percentage doing it. That gap is the whole case, and it is why the one goalie in this article is here. He played behind a team that finished 29th and scored 212 goals, fewest in the league. The year before, for the same club, he went .910 and won 29 games in 53 appearances, so the .899 is the outlier rather than the level. He weathered the storm behind a poor defensive team and lost 29 games doing it. He also played 57 games, seventh most of any goalie in the league, and only two netminders his age or younger carried anything close to that load. What changes is in front of him. Calgary spent its summer on defense, signing Simon Nemec for five years at $7.25M AAV and trading for Jake Middleton, while Matt Coronato takes 197 shots a year on the top line and 20-year-old Zayne Parekh logs 17 minutes a night on the second pair. We project a .902 save percentage in a band from .895 to .909, with 26 wins across 62 starts. The top of that range is close to the .910 he posted two seasons ago. The save percentage barely moves, because it was never the problem. The record is what breaks out.
Edmonton Oilers: Matt Savoie
Savoie played all 82 games as a rookie, scored 18 goals, and did it on 14:47 a night, which is third-line minutes with second-line results. Edmonton was outscoring opponents 31-23 at five-on-five with him out there, and his finishing sat within two goals of expectation, so none of it was smoke. Our projection, 38 points with a 47 ceiling, is the flattest in this article and it is the number we trust least. It is built on last year's minutes, and last year's minutes are gone: Savoie opens 2026-27 on the second line with Leon Draisaitl, who put up 97 points in 65 games and who we project for 118 this season. There is no better break available to a young winger in this league, and no projection built on 14 minutes with depth centers can price it. The caution is the power play. Edmonton's first unit is McDavid, Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and those four account for more than 80 percent of the power-play points on the roster. Savoie managed seven, sixth on the team and more than any other winger on his line, so the trust is there, but the top unit is spoken for. Hold the job at five-on-five and the 47 ceiling is the floor of the conversation, not the top of it.
Los Angeles Kings: Brandt Clarke
Clarke's arc only goes one way. Two points as a teenager, then six, then 33, then 40 last season, with his ice time climbing 13:39 to 16:17 to 19:48 and his shots on net from 131 to 159. He is 23, he put up 32 assists and 13 power-play points, and Los Angeles outscored opponents 32-23 at five-on-five with him on the ice. Then there is the part that says the Kings agree: Clarke opens this season on the top pair beside Mikey Anderson, with Drew Doughty on the second, and he is signed through 2031 at $7.4M. Taking a Norris winner's job at 23 is its own kind of statement, and the help just arrived around him. Los Angeles signed Mats Zuccarello, Erik Haula, Scott Laughton and Corey Perry this summer and added Artemi Panarin at last season's deadline, which is a lot of finishing to hand a defenseman who runs a power play. The honest caveat is that our projection stays cautious, 42 points with a 52 ceiling, a gain of two. Defensemen climb slowly and his 5.0 percent shooting is normal for the position, so there is no luck owed back to him. This is a bet on his minutes and where he is going, not on the puck starting to bounce his way.
San Jose Sharks: Will Smith
Smith has the biggest projection in this article and the reason is simple: he scored 59 points and missed 13 games with an upper-body injury. Give him those games back at the same pace and he is a 70-point player. His 2.30 points per 60 at five-on-five is the best rate in this article, he is 21, and he put 166 shots on net after 127 the year before. We project 75 points with a 93 ceiling. Two honest cautions. He finished 4.4 goals above expectation on a 14.5 percent shooting rate, so some of the goals were borrowed, and his 47.8 percent on-ice xGF share means San Jose was outchanced in his minutes and outscored 27-21 while he was on the ice at five-on-five. Neither is damning for a 21-year-old on a team pushing to get back to the playoffs, but they are the reason the floor sits at 64 rather than 70. What changes this year is the company. Smith lines up with Macklin Celebrini and Ivar Stenberg, the second overall pick, which is the most talented line San Jose has iced in a decade. And the stakes are higher than the standings let on: the Sharks missed the playoffs by four points. Celebrini scored 115 at 19 and we project 123 from him this season. If he simply repeats and Smith adds the 16 points we have him down for, San Jose will not be chasing a four-point gap come April. They will be opening one.
Seattle Kraken: Mackie Samoskevich
Samoskevich was Seattle's biggest addition of the summer, and he is also the young player on this roster most likely to jump, which is not a coincidence. Look at what happened to him in Florida: his shot volume climbed from 129 to 161 while his goals fell from 15 to 12. He converted 7.5 percent, and we have him 9.2 goals below expectation, the largest finishing deficit of anyone in this article by a wide margin. Same player, more chances, worse luck. That is the whole case and it is a strong one, which is why our model flags him as a buy-low. The caution is role. He signed for three years at $3.85M and opens on the third line with Chandler Stephenson and Kaapo Kakko, and a 1.36 points-per-60 rate at five-on-five is solid rather than special, so he needs a bigger job to reach the top of his band. Seattle finished 27th, nothing in that lineup is locked, and a strong first 20 games would put him in the conversation with Jared McCann and Bobby McMann for a top-six wing. We project 42 points with a 52 ceiling. If his shooting returns to his own 9.3 percent career rate, the points arrive without him playing any better.
Vancouver Canucks: Marco Rossi
Rossi scored 60 points in Minnesota two seasons ago, then blocked a shot against Philadelphia last October and lost the season to it. He had 13 points in 17 games when it happened, missed a month, came to Vancouver as the centerpiece of the Quinn Hughes trade, hurt the same lower body again as a Canuck, and finished with 35 points in 50 games across the two teams. Vancouver did not acquire a depth piece: he opens the season as their first-line center, between Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser, on $5M through 2028. That is the whole case, and it is a big one. A 0.70 per-game rate across a disrupted, half-relocated season projects to 57 over a full year in one place, and we land at 54 with a 67 ceiling. The cautions are worth stating plainly. His 41.1 percent on-ice xGF share was the worst of anyone in this article, he finished 3.1 goals above expectation, and Vancouver was outscored 28-17 with him on the ice at five-on-five. Some of that is a team that finished last in the league. Some of it is his. But a 24-year-old with a 60-point season already behind him, handed a top line and a full training camp with it, is the most straightforward bet in this article.
Vegas Golden Knights: Braeden Bowman
Nobody in this article controlled the ice like Bowman did, and almost nobody has heard of him. In 54 rookie games he posted a 58.8 percent on-ice xGF share, the best here by a distance, and Vegas outscored opponents 21-6 at five-on-five with him on the ice. He also finished 5.5 goals below expectation, so the eight goals he scored should have been closer to 14, and his 1.94 points per 60 at five-on-five sits third in this article behind two players with far bigger reputations. We project 42 points with a 52 ceiling and flag him as a buy-low. The caution is volume: 75 shots in 54 games is a passenger's shot rate, and a 21-6 goal split across 54 games is a sample small enough to flatter anyone. He opens on the third line with Tomas Hertl and Victor Olofsson, which is a real job on a contender. Everything he did last season says he deserves a bigger one.
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