2026 NHL Draft Profile: Mathis Preston

One of the big fallers in this year's draft is Mathis Preston. He came into this season definitely in the top 10, maybe even the top 5. There are some scouts I know who were talking about him potentially competing for the first overall pick – and this is my reminder that McKenna was never a consensus first overall for pretty much any period this year.

There are reasons why he's slowly been slipping further down, and now outside the first round. But there are also reasons why he could make for a good swing in the late second round if he continues to fall on draft day.

THE BASICS: STATS AND CONTEXT

• Position: Right-shot winger
• League(s): WHL
• Height: 5'11"
• Weight: 176 lbs
• Birthdate: Jul 5, 2008

Here are his draft rankings, as of writing this:

• TSN NHL Scout Poll: Not ranked
• Cam Robinson NHL Scout Poll: 31st
• Corey Pronman: 27th
• Will Scouch: 16th
• Elite Prospects: 38th
• Scott Wheeler: 58th
• McKeen's Hockey: 61st
• Upside Hockey: 38th
• NHL Central Scouting: 24th (North American skaters)

Back in 2023, Preston was drafted third overall to the WHL by Spokane. He was a key piece in their push for the WHL championship last year as a 16 year old, putting up 23 goals and 45 points in 54 games and then 9 goals and 16 points in 20 playoff games. He was dominant for Canada on the international stage, with 4 goals and 7 points at the Hlinka Gretzky and then 2 goals and 6 points in 5 games at the World U18s.

Where things went wrong for Preston this year was back in the WHL. Spokane had gone all in the previous season, and their top stars mostly aged out of junior or turned pro early and left them very little in the way of impact players. Preston was supposed to be their star to keep them relevant, but things didn't go that way. In 36 games for Spokane, he had 14 goals and 32 points in 36 games. Which is still pretty good for a prospect in their draft year, but 'pretty good' isn't what you're supposed to say about a guy pushing for top 5 pick status.

When Spokane decided to pull the plug and commit to a rebuild, they traded Preston to Vancouver. After only two games, Preston had a knee injury from a dirty knee on knee collision and missed two months from January into March. When he returned, he did wind up on a good stretch and finished with 12 points in 10 games and getting points in 9 of those 10 games.

There are a couple of reasons why Preston's rankings fell outside of just the lack of elite level scoring. You can see in his tracking data that it hints at a guy who has a lot of offensive skill, but everything just looks pretty good to meh. So a guy whose offensive game is supposed to be the foundational reason for him being such a high draft pick led to just pretty good point production in a junior league with very high scoring rates, and tracking data that also just looked pretty good.

So unless the scouting reports were giving him rave reviews and explaining why his points or tracking data don't matter, it's not very difficult to see why his rankings slipped. Now, I'm going to do something I don't think I've ever done with these profiles. I'm going to start the scouting report section with his flaws and then go into his strengths, rather than the other way around. I'm also going to keep the flaws more focused on what the scouting reports say than what I saw, even if I agree with them to any extent.

THE FLAWS: TUNNEL VISIONING, PERIMETER RISK, DEFENSE, CONSISTENCY

I can summarize all of the criticisms for Preston according to his biggest critics in one simple way — he is viewed as a very "junior" player. Remember all those times when talking about prospects like Easton Cowan, when scouts or even us here will say something like "he has junior habits he needs to unlearn, and his game needs to mature to get ready for the pros"? Preston is said to exemplify that.

First, his effort can be inconsistent. He can have stretches where he seems to just coast, and his focus or engagement level in the play drops off. He won't support his defensemen, he fails to cover his man, he doesn't chase a puck carrier near him or hunt for loose pucks. Without the puck, he doesn't have great structural habits in his own zone, but lingers on the perimeter hoping for a loose puck so he can start a rush.

Second, when he has the puck he can try and force plays. Trying to beat every defender with speed, trying to make a pass through several defenders in a blocked passing lane, trying to dangle too much, things like that. On the other hand, he can also get bottled on the perimeter instead of using his skill and speed to get to the middle of the ice for more dangerous chances, and then he'll force a shot from distance or a sharp angle that doesn't have good odds for beating the goalie.

Finally, there's the usual things for skilled forwards who don't have above average size: he can be knocked off pucks relatively easily, and his skill can get shut down by heavy, physical checking. This is why he can get forced to be a perimeter player at times. It also means he's not much help defensively since he can be shrugged off more easily along the boards.

A reminder, this is what some of the negative scouting reports on him say. It's not necessarily what is universally agreed upon by scouts or myself.

THE GOOD: ELITE SKATING AND PACE, NHL-LEVEL SHOT, HIGH-LEVEL PLAYMAKING

So, now to the good things that scouts say about Preston. Once again, this will be entirely what scouts say regardless of if I agree with it to any extent. I'll get to my own thoughts in the conclusion. In short, Preston has all around elite-levels of skill.

First, Preston has elite skating and speed and plays at a very high pace that would absolutely work in the NHL. Linear speed by itself isn't that important to me, but it's nice to have. More importantly, he uses his speed to get to loose pucks first, rush defensemen on dump ins to force turnovers, back defenders up on transition attempts, all those good things. He also has some tenacity to his game, using reverse hits when he gets to the loose puck first, taking hits to make plays, driving to the net with serious intent, and so on.

Preston also already has an NHL-level shot, with a ridiculously quick, powerful and accurate catch and release. He has a wicked one timer that he can blast on powerplays especially. He can launch his wrist shot in stride with his ridiculous speed. He changes the angles of his shot to add some deception to the release that makes it easier for him to beat goalies even when they're set and square to him.

Third, Preston has some of the niftiest of mittens when it comes to handling the puck. He has a deep toolbox for beating defenses like stop-on-a-dime cutbacks, changes of speed, or leaving the puck out in front to bait defenders into reaching for the puck only to pull it back and skate through them and make it look easy.

Fourth, Preston is an elite playmaker. He has excellent vision and shows a deft touch for slinging passes through east-west passing lanes to create high danger chances for his linemates. He uses that speed and handling skill to create passing lanes out of nothing. He is also equally capable of making strong and accurate passes on his backhand in addition to his forehand.

Lastly, Preston at his best has the offensive tools to take over games. Even if he didn't have a lot of points that you would expect from an elite offensive forward, he also played for two offensively challenged teams who didn't make the playoffs. On Vancouver, his point production factored into almost half of the team's total goals in the 10 games he played for them – 44% to be specific according to Mr Scouch. That's a ridiculous rate in a small sample, and it would beat every other player in any league in this draft. But again, small sample. It's more a sign that he wasn't working with much help.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

So that is what the negative and positive scouting reports have to say about Preston. You'll notice that some of those things conflict with each other, especially when it comes to things like his physical tenacity being legit vs not really there at all, willingness and ability to drive to the centre of the ice vs being purely a perimeter guy, and coasting vs using his speed to cause turnovers.

So what I saw from him this year and what I think is that there are elements of truth to both. Preston has undeniable skill in just about every way a guy can have offensive skill. But those flaws do make appearances from time to time, and they mostly have to do with his habits – especially without the puck.

However, one thing I'll say is that a lot of those negative scouting reports came earlier in the season, and a lot more of the positive ones came later in the season. That's because Preston undeniably made a lot of improvements over the season, including but not limited to:

• Learning to vary his pace: he started using changes of speed, cutbacks, delays, and things like that instead of just trying to get by defenders purely with north-south speed.
• Not trying to be a one man army on transitions: he started connecting with his teammates on transitions a lot more, especially once he was traded to Vancouver. He started to use teammates for give and go exchanges a lot more, as one example.
• Pushing play to the middle of the ice: his late season scouting reports, including his play at the World U18s, saw positive call outs for his ability to lower his center of gravity along the boards to absorb contact, using that tenacity and good hands to gain control of the puck, then use his handling and skating to get it off the boards and drive to the middle of the ice.
• Consistency of effort: The first few months is where all of those negative scouting reports came calling out his effort and tendency to 'float'. Starting when the calendar switched to 2026, that went away. He was tenacious pursuing puck carriers, with few able to escape his speed. I saw one scout say the biggest hit he saw all year was one Preston threw late in a game, and how Preston becomes a little physical terror at times.

In my personal opinion, what I saw in the games of his I watched this year, while there is merit to a lot of those flaws that some scouts called attention to, I think the severity of them was exaggerated. Or at least I wasn't watching the right games to see it as bad or as often as they made it seem. Honestly, watching him in junior I had the thought that if you put a flowing blond wig on him he'd remind me a lot of the early years of a certain enigmatic Maple Leaf winger from Sweden that had a lot of those same things said about him when he was a prospect, but who still had that overwhelmingly exciting offensive skill. Honestly, a lot of the same good and bad things about him are also said about McKenna. But McKenna's flaws aren't as bad and he has better skill.

My conclusion about him is basically that I don't think he's as good as his biggest fans in the scouting community think he is, nor is he as bad as his biggest doubters are. But I also hope that most NHL teams don't believe in him, enough to make him fall even more than just outside the first round. While Preston carries some risk with him, if you trust in that level of skill and in the improvements he made in the little things parts of his game around effort and physical play and making it work in the rougher areas of the ice, you could land an incredible talent late in the second round. Especially for the Leafs, who could really use more skill in their lineup.

That's also why I don't think he will fall that far, but when I see Preston ranked in the 40's by guys like Pronman, who is one of the scouts most closely aligned with what NHL teams think, I can't help but feel a little hopeful...

Thanks for reading!

I put a lot of work into my prospect articles here, both for the draft and Toronto's prospects. I do it as a fun hobby for me, and I'd probably do it in some capacity even if PPP completely ceased to exist. But if you like reading my work, some support would go a long way! I pay for a few streaming services (CHL, NCAA, USHL, the occasional TSN options for international tournaments that are broadcast) to be able to reliably watch these prospects in good quality streams. I also pay for some prospect-specific resources, such as tracking data and scouting reports from outlets like Elite Prospects, Future Considerations, McKeen's Hockey, The Athletic, and more.

Being able to get paid for this helps me dedicate more time and resources to it, rather than to second/third jobs. And whatever money I make here, a lot of I reinvest back into my prospect work through in those streaming and scouting services. Like I said, I'd be doing whatever I can afford for this anyway, so any financial help I get through this is greatly appreciated!