There’s absolutely no doubt who will be going first overall in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft: Vancouver’s Connor Bedard.
After Bedard, there’s a fair amount of consensus in the next two or three picks. Adam Fantilli and Leo Carlsson are expected to go second and third, though not necessarily in that order. Then there’s Will Smith, who is expected to go fourth overall but might sneak above Fantilli or Carlsson.
After those four, however, there’s a lot more uncertainty. There are multiple forwards projected to go in the top ten, including a couple of Smith’s teammates from the US National Team Development Program and a phenom out of Russia, but a defenceman or two like David Reinbacher or Axel Sandin Pellikka could sneak into the top ten and push a forward out.
That’s where the Vancouver Canucks will be waiting with the 11th overall pick.
So, who are the players with the most potential to slide? Let’s take a look at three of them: Zach Benson, Matvei Michkov, and Ryan Leonard.
Zach Benson
Why he should be a top-ten pick: Immense talent
Why he might fall to the Canucks: Not-so-immense size
The Canucks won’t be able to draft their hometown wunderkind, Connor Bedard, who utterly dominated the WHL this past season. But they still might get a different hometown wunderkind who also dominated the WHL this past season: Zach Benson.
Benson was born in Langley, which is in the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area, so it counts. His 98 points in 60 games was good for third in WHL scoring this season behind Bedard and 20-year-old Dallas Stars prospect Chase Wheatcroft.
“He is arguably the smartest player in this crop, rivaling Connor Bedard,” said Elite Prospects’ Cam Robinson on the Sekeres & Price show. “My colleague, Mitch Brown, manually tracks data and he possessed the best playmaking profile of anyone since Connor McDavid. His playmaking is through the roof.”
Benson has tremendous puck skills but what sets him apart is his mind for the game, which allows him to use those skills to create all kinds of openings for his teammates.
“With the puck, he’s a cunning manipulator, selling false intentions with his subtle movements and his eyes to clear defenders from pockets of space, drawing them into his orbit before connecting with his linemate in that newly vacated ice,” reads his scouting report from Elite Prospects.
Beyond the playmaking ability, Benson can dangle with the best of them to score incredible highlight-reel goals.
Even more, Benson isn’t just a one-dimensional, offensive winger. Elite Prospects ranks Benson as the best two-way forward in the draft, praising his intelligence in the defensive zone.
Accordingly, Benson is ranked highly across the board — as high as third overall by Recruit Scouting. Elite Prospects goes as far as saying that Benson is “a No. 1 overall talent by the standards of most drafts.” And yet, there’s a good chance that Benson falls on draft day.
“Benson is the clear No. 5 prospect in this year’s draft by our reckoning, but that doesn’t appear to reflect the feelings of NHL decision-makers,” said J.D. Burke in the Elite Prospects Draft Guide. “Increasingly, it looks like he might fall from the top 10 entirely.”
The reason why is pretty simple: Benson is small and his skating is closer to average than high-end. That combination tends to scare NHL scouting staffs, who have seen all sorts of talented players fail to translate their games to the NHL because of a lack of size.
Here’s the funny thing: at the NHL Combine, Benson was measured as the exact same height as Bedard: 5’9.75”. Bedard weighed in at 185 lbs, while Benson was 170 lbs, so there’s still a size difference there, but Bedard won’t be sliding in the draft because he’s shy of 5’10” and Benson probably shouldn’t either.
But, if he does slide, the Canucks could be the beneficiaries. Benson has the potential to be an elite, first-line winger — the type of impact player that is nearly impossible to find outside of the draft. If Benson is still available, the Canucks should sprint to the stage to make the pick.
Matvei Michkov
Why he should be a top-ten pick: Second-best prospect in the draft behind Bedard
Why he might fall to the Canucks: The Russian factor
For a long time, Matvei Michkov’s name was spoken in the same breath as Connor Bedard. His dominant performance as a 16-year-old at the 2021 World Under-18 Championship, where he had 12 goals in 7 games, had draft experts expecting the Russian winger to challenge Bedard for top spot in the talented 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
All things being equal, Michkov would be an easy second-overall pick behind Bedard. Instead, it’s likely that Michkov slides right out of the top five and there’s a possibility, however remote, that he slides all the way out of the top ten to the Canucks at 11th overall.
It’s not Michkov’s fault, really. He’s still the same elite talent as before, with creativity, intelligence, and skill all working together to make him a dynamic offensive threat. Offensively, he does it all: skating, dangling, playmaking, shooting. He’s got both soft skill to create chances with silky stickhandling and precision passing from the perimeter and hard skill to win battles on the boards, drive to the net, and take a hit to score a goal.
It’s his mind that sets him apart. He thinks of things on the ice that no one else can and then matches that with the skill to execute what he’s thinking. His ability to manipulate defenders is incredible to watch: every deke, pass, or shot seems to be preceding by some element of trickery to convince an opponent that he’s about to do the exact opposite.
While Bedard was lighting up junior hockey, Michkov was playing against men, putting up 20 points in 27 KHL games with HK Sochi — the highest points-per-game ever by a first-time draft-eligible prospect.
Unsurprisingly, Michkov is consistently ranked in the top five by draft experts but there’s a significant wrinkle: Michkov is signed in the KHL through 2026.
There’s no transfer agreement between the KHL and NHL, which means Michkov is staying in the KHL until after the 2025-26 season. The only way to get out of that contract early would be for a mutually agreed upon buyout but Michkov would have to buy out his own contract — NHL teams are not allowed to buy out KHL contracts.
That means the NHL team that drafts Michkov would have to wait a minimum of three years before he could play for them.
“How many general managers have the sort of job security to wait him out? Can you count them with one hand?” questions Elite Prospects in their Michkov scouting report. “So, where it once was the Bedard-Michkov draft, no such dynamic exists going into Nashville. It’s now the Bedard draft, with many in the industry increasingly convinced that Michkov will fall out of the top-10 entirely.”
Waiting three years for Michkov is one issue; another is that the NHL team will have no say in Michkov’s development over those three years. The Canucks saw this firsthand with Vasily Podkolzin, who received limited ice time in the KHL, arguably stagnating his development at a key time in his career.
More than just the waiting period, there’s some uncertainty involved with Michkov because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With Russia barred from playing in international tournaments by the IIHF, Michkov hasn’t faced his draft-class peers at all this past year. In addition, travel restrictions mean NHL scouts have, on the whole, not been able to travel to Russia.
As a result, teams have not been able to scout Michkov in person, with their scouting limited to video.
“We didn’t have any scouts in Russia, we pulled them all out, so this kid is like a black box,” said one NHL scout to Elite Prospects. “The film looks good, but honestly, I don’t know. It’s hard to give a fair read. We don’t have a great read on many Russians, and honestly, beyond this kid. I wouldn’t draft any Russians this year.”
That might make NHL teams nervous, because there’s a limit to what you can see in video. What are his defensive habits away from the puck? When the play switches ends and the camera pans away, is he skating hard on the backcheck or is he coasting?
And some of the defensive habits that do show up in video aren’t great. He seems to just go through the motions defensively and has a tendency to blow the zone early hoping for a breakaway pass.
“He’s not involved, not really helping, and only pretending half the time,” said Elite Prospects’ David St-Louis in one scouting report. “He thinks of himself as only an offensive player.”
Are all of those concerns enough to send a potentially elite, game-breaking talent out of the top ten at the draft? Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be available for the Canucks.
Ryan Leonard
Why he should be a top-ten pick: Combination of compete and craft
Why he might fall to the Canucks: He might not be a centre
Ryan Leonard is a gamer. No, not in the video game sense (though it’s hard to find a prospect these days that doesn’t play video games) but in the old-school sports sense: he consistently gives everything he has out on the ice.
While Leonard is far from a grinder, he works like one, with the type of ever-churning motor that NHL teams love. When you match that with his strengths as a skater, passer, and shooter, it’s no wonder that he’s consistently ranked in the top ten by draft experts.
Leonard excelled with the US National Team Development Program on a line with fellow top prospects Will Smith and Gabe Perreault, putting up 51 goals and 94 points in 57 games. That line was dominant for Team USA at the World Under-18 Championship, where he had 8 goals and 17 points in just 7 games.
There’s so much to like about Leonard’s game, including his attention to detail defensively that makes him a legitimate two-way player and not just an offensive threat.
“What’s not to like about a player who is a skilled dangler, a lethal shooter, and an intelligent, skilled passer who bullies opponents and shuts things down in the defensive zone?” says his scouting report from Elite Prospects.
There are a couple of reasons, however, why he might slide out of the top ten. One is that teams might be considering positional need even in the top ten, as there’s not a large gap in talent between prospects in a certain tier. Teams looking for a defenceman could reach for Reinbacher or Sandin Pellikka, while other teams might prioritize a centre.
At one point, Leonard was a center but his move to the wing with the USNTDP might be a permanent one. Leonard is likely to remain on the wing as he heads to Boston College. That’s a couple of key years in his development playing away from centre, which won’t give NHL teams much confidence that he can transition back to centre at the NHL level.
It’s also worth pointing out that Leonard was the third-highest scorer on his own line. Perreault’s 132 points and Smith’s 127 points dwarf Leonard’s 94 points. Even at the World Under-18 tournament, Perreault and Smith both outscored Leonard, albeit by a smaller margin.
There’s no doubt that each of those prospects benefited from playing with each other, with the trio stringing together all sorts of tic-tac-toe plays to befuddle opponents and dazzle scouts. Did Leonard benefit more than Perreault and Smith, making him look better than he actually is? Is it the other way around? Or did they all benefit each other equally?
There’s something else to consider: Leonard leans toward a north-south power forward game but he’s under 6 feet tall — he measured in at 5’11.75” at the NHL Combine. Will that power element of his game translate to the NHL when he’s regularly facing bigger and stronger defencemen?
Even with all that in mind, it’s more likely that Leonard will be the cause of someone like Benson or Michkov sliding in the draft rather than sliding himself. His well-rounded, versatile game makes him one of the safer picks in the draft and NHL GMs love a safe pick. It’s entirely possible that Leonard sneaks into the top five to the Montreal Canadiens at fifth overall.
