Capitals front office predicted selecting Oliver Suvanto during team’s mock draft ahead of 2026 NHL Draft

The Washington Capitals completed their 29th draft under the watch of assistant general manager Ross Mahoney last month. Heading into the festivities at Buffalo’s KeyBank Center, the Caps held just four draft picks, with only one coming in the first three rounds, the 18th overall selection.

With that pick, the Capitals added Finnish center Oliver Suvanto, making the 17-year-old forward the first player they’ve drafted out of Finland in 20 years. While reporters and experts spend months trying to project where prospects will land in the first round, the Caps front office met a day before the draft to try and do the same.

The team’s process was revealed in a behind-the-scenes video published by the Capitals on Monday. In the mock draft led by Mahoney, the team’s scouts and other personnel projected the first 20 picks of the first round, including their own, predicting that they would take Suvanto, which they did a day later.

As part of the exercise, each of the NHL teams with picks within the first 20 of the first round was assigned to a different member of Washington’s staff. They then selected players based on how they believed other teams would handle the draft, not necessarily using the organization’s own prospect rankings to make the picks.

“We look forward to the mock draft every year,” scout AJ Toews said in the video. “We have to try to think like other teams think. It’s very easy to just put who you think is next on the list, but we’re trying to think of what other teams might do. There’s always curveballs. We kinda have to be prepared for everything because we just don’t know how other teams are going to pick.”

Toews, who acted as the Toronto Maple Leafs, went with the obvious number-one overall selection, Gavin McKenna, to kick things off. McKenna was followed by scout Rich Alger taking Ivar Stenberg for the San Jose Sharks, and so on until the Capitals were “on the clock” at pick number 18.

After another scout in the room selected Suvanto for the Caps, Mahoney turned to the club’s Finnish scout, Matti Lamberg, and asked, “Are you okay with that, Matti?” and received a nod of confirmation from Lamberg.

“I started to see [Suvanto] for the first time last season,” Lamberg said. “What stood out was his competitiveness and that maturity level that he has in his game. How much pride he takes from it. We really liked what we saw.”

After completing the mock draft, Mahoney then checked in with general manager Chris Patrick about the team’s overall strategy for the next day. “Do you have a preference, Chris, by position at all? Are we splitting hairs with a bigger center as compared to a winger?” Mahoney asked.

“No, I think for me, given we only have one pick in the first three rounds, I’d be okay with whoever you think has the highest upside,” Patrick replied. “And if you’re wrong, you’re wrong, but you took a swing at a good player.”

Overall, the Capitals’ front office and scouts ended up projecting just four of the 20 picks correctly, with their own selection of Suvanto being one of the four.

Capitals mock draft vs. actual 2026 NHL Draft