Flyers trade back, select Maksim Sokolovskii at No. 27 in the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft
Danny Briere opened the 2026 NHL Draft on Friday night by trading the 21st pick to the Sharks for picks 27, 62, and 120, turning one first-round selection into three picks across the first four rounds before using the 27th pick on Maksim Sokolovskii, a 17-year-old left-shot defenseman from the London Knights.
Maksim Sokolovskii stands 6’7″ and weighs 240 pounds and looks like he was genetically engineered in a lab to make life miserable for anyone who skates within five feet of the Flyers’ net.
Maksim Sokolovskii
The Flyers came into the draft with their lowest first-round spot since 2020 because they made the playoffs and won a round this year, which is the kind of problem every franchise wants to have, and Briere responded by trading back six spots, picking up two extra selections, and still landing the massive physical defenseman he wanted to add to a pipeline that is starting to look like a defensive assembly line for guys who are 6’2″ and above.
Sokolovskii joins Oliver Bonk at 6’2″, David Jiricek at 6’4″, Spencer Gill at 6’4″, and Carter Amico at 6’5″ in a prospect system that apparently won’t draft a blueliner unless they need to duck going through doorways.
Briere was direct about what Maksim Sokolovskii is and what he isn’t by saying “we don’t expect him to be the next big point producer, I don’t think that would be fair to say he was drafted for that, we see him as a big physical force, a defenseman that’s going to be tough to face.”
I really don’t know if this is a good pick or not but at least the GM isn’t trying to pretend that a 6’7″ defenseman with eight points in 44 games is going to be quarterbacking the power play anytime soon.
Sokolovskii is a project who was drafted for his size, his physicality, and his ability to make opposing forwards hate their lives in front of the net, and the Flyers are betting that those traits combined with proper development will turn into a top-four shutdown defenseman who can pair with one of the smaller, more skilled blueliners already in the system like Cam York or Jamie Drysdale.
Maksim Sokolovskii handles???
Moving from 21 to 27 in a draft where the Flyers’ target was still available at 27 and picking up two extra selections in the process is the kind of draft-day maneuvering that good organizations execute when they know who they want and how far they can slide without losing him.
The Flyers gave up six spots in the first round and got a second-rounder at 62 and a fourth-rounder at 120 in return, which means they turned one pick into three and still got the player they were targeting.
Maksim Sokolovskii’s draft stock was all over the place depending on who you asked because EliteProspects had him 22nd overall while NHL Central Scouting ranked him 40th among North American skaters after he climbed from 132 at the midterm evaluation.
That kind of range tells you evaluators were split on how to value a player whose physical tools are elite but whose offensive production at eight points in 44 games doesn’t exactly scream first-round pick.
The Flyers clearly sided with the evaluators who believed the physical profile and the development trajectory are worth the investment, and getting him at 27 instead of 21 while adding two extra picks makes the gamble significantly easier to stomach.
Maksim Sokolovskii Highlights
The Flyers Have 5 Picks on Day 2
Briere goes into Saturday’s second day of the draft with five picks across the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh rounds, including the extra second-rounder at 62 and the extra fourth-rounder at 120 that he acquired in the trade back from 21.
The Flyers have the ammunition to add more prospects to a system that is already loaded with young guys at every position and the extra picks give Briere the flexibility to take swings on high-upside players in the later rounds who might not pan out but cost nothing to gamble on.
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Jon The Chase
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