Flyers Close Out 2026 Draft by Selecting KJ Sauer, Max Laatikainen
Edmonton Oil Kings/chl.ca
To end out the 2026 NHL Draft, the Flyers acquired a pair of youngsters.
The Flyers grabbed center Kent “KJ” Sauer with the 136th pick Saturday, a 6’3″, 202-pound power forward from Andover High School in Minnesota who spent most of this season on the shelf.
Sauer played just 20 games between Andover and a brief stint with the Lincoln Stars of the USHL, battling injury for the bulk of the year. He posted eight goals and 25 points in 15 high school games, then five points in five games with Lincoln before the season ended. The sample is thin, and everyone knows it. But Flyers scout Shane Fukushima, based in Minnesota and credited by assistant general manager Brent Flahr for the pick, never gave up on Sauer.
“KJ’s a sizable center that can really skate,” Flahr said. “He has a physical side to his game, and if we can round out a little bit more offense, we really like where his game’s going.”
Sauer knows who he is.
“I’m a big power forward, I can work both ways,” he said in a Zoom interview after being picked. “I like to be gritty, I like to get into the greasy areas and I’m not afraid of anyone.”
He models his game after Brady Tkachuk, and scouts saw exactly that. Stick on puck, timing his angles and finishing through the body. He laid some of the biggest hits on draft-eligible players the USHL saw all season. His skating was improved and his offensive game simplified once he got to Lincoln, both likely due to the injury. His father, Kent, played professionally. Uncles Kurt and Michael both reached the NHL. He grew up around the game at that level.
The Flyers have been down this road before. Noah Cates came out of Minnesota high school hockey as a fifth-round pick and is now a core piece of the roster. Alex Bump did the same thing, in the fifth round, from a Minnesota high school, and he is one of the young players the Flyers are banking on for the future. Fukushima has those names attached to his track record in that state. Sauer is the next name on the list.
He signed with the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings and heads there next season. A full, healthy year in the WHL tells the Flyers what they actually drafted. EliteProspects had him 128th. Central Scouting put him 92nd among North American skaters. The Flyers got him at 136, a few spots later than most boards, largely because of the injury cloud.
Fifth-round picks at this range are long shots. Sauer has the size, the nastiness, and the right last name. As for the knee that cost him most of his season, he kept it simple.
“Did therapy,” he said. “Feel good now.”
With the 213th overall pick in the final round, the Flyers took Finnish defenseman Max Laatikainen out of Kiekko-Espoo. He is 17, 5’11”, 173 pounds, and the youngest player in the entire draft class, born one day before the eligibility cutoff. Next year’s draft was one day away for Laatikainen.
Laatikainen played at three different levels in 2025-26, posting 11 points in 22 games at the U20 level before appearing in six games in Liiga, Finland’s top professional league. A season-ending injury in late December shut him down before he could build on it. He came back to represent Finland at the U18 World Championship anyway, recording a goal and an assist in five games. His father, Arto, is an assistant coach with the Kiekko-Espoo U20 team, so the game has been around him his whole life.
He doesn’t fit what the Flyers were building toward most of this draft. No size, no physicality, just a puck mover with smooth skating and composure that scouts noticed in Liiga minutes most 17-year-olds never see. Flyers European scout Sami Sandell kept pushing. Flahr gave him the credit when it was over.
“He’s an energetic, offensive guy that likes to have the puck,” Flahr said. “He moves it well. Playing with the national team, he was very effective, and we’re hoping he can maybe catch an inch still, but at the same time, he’s got lots of juice, lots of energy, and he’s a guy that Sami had been banging on the table for, so it worked out that way, and we’ll see what happens.”
The concerns are legitimate. He is undersized, not particularly explosive, and scouts flagged a low motor and errors in transition during international viewings. EliteProspects stopped short of projecting him to an NHL role. He is reportedly heading to Sport next season, which would mean regular Liiga minutes at 18.
Steve Hamilton
Steve may have been born in California, but don’t let that fool you. After dating a local woman and clashing with her and her family over sports for decades, he has an affinity for Philly sports. Balancing love for Philly and Bay Area sports teams may seem impossible, we can all agree that the Cowboys are the true evil.
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