Ranking Bob McKenzie for the 2023 NHL Draft

After?

Plenty of pundits have already spoken, and latecomers still have a few days to submit their mock NHL draft. Thursday, it was the turn of the famous Bob McKenzie of the TSN network to offer his.

“It’s a really impressive group after Bedard,” a head scout for an NHL team told McKenzie in gathering information for his rankings. “It’s not just the ‘Repêchage Bedard’; there is a Big Five, and if you pick in the top five, you don’t get a good hope, you get a very good, maybe an extraordinary hope. ”

For his exercise, McKenzie consulted 10 NHL head scouts and asked them to rank the prospects in the order they would select them and not to predict which player will select which team.

Fantilli, a forward for the University of Michigan Wolverines, is second in McKenzie’s rankings.

“He’s second to Bedard simply because nine out of ten recruiters surveyed ranked him that way,” McKenzie wrote.

Swedish center Leo Carlsson follows in the third echelon, where seven of 10 scouts list him.

Will Smith, a center of the American development program, comes fourth ahead of the enigmatic Russian Matvei Michkov.

“Even though Michkov’s consensus ranking is 5th – five scouts have placed him there, but he has also been considered 2nd, 3rd and 4th – this prediction remains uncertain unlike the one about Bedard which is clear. like rock water. Regardless of who drafts Michkov, regardless of rank, it will be a dominant story of this draft. Perhaps even THE subject after Bedard.

“Michkov’s talent and natural ability to score goals is undeniable. But there are so many other factors that come into play, not the least of which,” McKenzie added, referring to his KHL contract, his Russian nationality and the recent mysterious death of his father.

“A scout said Michkov is probably the only hope in this crop that would require approval from an NHL owner before a team would pick him in the top five or even the top 10,” McKenzie reported. .

That’s why Michkov is the most likely prospect in this top-5 to go down in the first round. To take his place in 5th place, the selection rank of the Montreal Canadiens, McKenzie identifies three potential candidates: American forward Ryan Leonard, Slovak forward Dalibor Dvorsky and Austrian defender David Reinbacher.