Panthers Take Owen Sound Sniper Cole Zurawski at 181st Overall
Florida landed the shoot-first OHL forward in the sixth round of the 2026 draft, well after most scouting services had him going.
The Florida Panthers selected forward Cole Zurawski in the sixth round of the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo, 181st overall, and the value on that pick looks better the longer you sit with it. Several scouting services had him projected in the late third or early fourth round.
Zurawski put up 24 goals and 22 assists in 63 games for the Owen Sound Attack in his draft season, his second in the OHL. That followed a 16-goal, 15-assist rookie year split between the Flint Firebirds and Owen Sound. The Attack acquired him by trade on January 8, 2025, when he was 16.
The 24 goals tied him for third on the Attack, and his 46 points ranked fifth. Thirty of those points came at even strength, which matters more than the raw total for a player at this stage, and he averaged just under three shots on goal per game.
He played three of Owen Sound's four playoff games, picking up an assist in Game 1 and scoring the team's only goal in Game 2 with four seconds left. Flint, his former club, swept the series.
The skill set is built around the shot. Zurawski's wrist shot has NHL pace and accuracy, and he has the hands to create the look himself, stickhandling through traffic and deking around defenders to get to his release. His passing and vision are better than they get credit for, mostly because the shot dominates the scouting report. What needs work: acceleration, the finer points of his skating, and awareness away from the puck.
Zurawski attended Florida's development camp after the draft. With Nicholas Sykora off to Western Michigan, Zurawski could inherit the primary role on Owen Sound's power play this coming season, which sets him up for a real draft plus-one jump.
He is verbally committed to Notre Dame for 2027-28, so the runway here is long, as it is for most of the Panthers' current pipeline. Late-round forwards with one elite tool tend to live or die on everything else, and that is the honest read on Zurawski right now.
