2023 National Hockey League Draft Winners and Losers
Three Winners and Three Losers From Nashville
2023 National Hockey League Draft Winners and Losers
With the National Hockey League wrapping up their two-day Draft event in Nashville, we take a deeper look at a few teams that improved the quality of their current organizational depth and a couple of squads that didn’t do as well as projected here in this NHL Draft Winners and Losers Review.
Winners
Chicago Blackhawks
It’s a bit easy to say the team who landed the Number One Overall pick in this year’s draft would be one of the teams considered a “Winner” of the event, but General Manager Kyle Davidson did more than snag a future superstar in center Connor Bedard with that top pick. Using the #19 pick in the First Round to select Oliver Moore, a winger than many scouts projected as one of the fastest skaters in the entire draft class.
The 18-year old will spend next season attending the University of Minnesota, but he adds great depth to what had been a fairly barren pantry of talented forwards for the Hawks. Another depth selection was Slovakian goaltender Adam Gajan with the 35th overall pick in the Second Round. His USHL numbers were solid enough to earn him the start for Team Slovakia in the World Juniors, where he took home Top Goaltender honors.
He will get more time developing at Minnesota-Duluth for at least a couple of seasons before projecting to sign his Entry Level Contract afterwards. With other depth forwards picks in the later rounds and adding veteran depth to the big club with trades for Corey Perry and Josh Bailey, the Blackhawks are still rebuilding for the next one to two more seasons, but they have a very sturdy foundation set thanks to Kyle Davidson and his scouting staff, and things look much brighter on the West Side of Chicago now than one calendar year ago.
Columbus Blue Jackets
This wasn’t a draft year with a lot of big trades or teams looking to move up or down on the draft board within the first round, but one shock at the top was University of Michigan forward Adam Fantilli dropping from second, where he was slated to be picked by the Anaheim Ducks, and instead dropping to Columbus with the third spot after Leo Carlsson was acquired by the Orange County franchise.
GM Jarmo Kekäläinen added another Wolverine product into former enemy territory, as he selected centerman Gavin Brindley with the 34th overall pick early in the Second Round. Add in another pair of teammates in winger William Whitelaw and defenseman Andrew Strathmann, who both played in-state last year with Youngstown in the USHL before both heading to separate colleges this Fall, but the Jackets are building their depth with familiar players, adding to the chemistry component that organizations realize, that is something much easier to cultivate when building from the bottom up.
Columbus still needs to sign a Head Coach and make some big moves during free agency to make themselves more of a contender in this upcoming season, but the rebuild is looking strong in central Ohio.
Philadelphia Flyers
The times are changing on Broad Street in Philly, from the club announcing they are going back to their traditional uniform look to bringing in former organizational players like Daniel Briere and Patrick Sharp along with Keith Jones to fix their much misaligned front office when it was ran into the ground by Chuck Fletcher.
One giant boost was landing Russian star Matvei Michkov with the seventh overall pick. Some of the Top-Five clubs passed on the SKA St. Petersburg star because of the binding three-year contract he still has with the Kontinental Hockey League club, but with many pieces and moves still needed to be made before the Flyers can return to legitimate contention as a playoff team in the Eastern Conference, he should be ready to dazzle fans all over the league once he can head to North America in the 2026-27 season. Based on what the majority of scouts are saying, this kid is certainly worth the wait.
Losers
Montreal Canadiens
Some would say a blunder during the NHL Draft may or may not be an omen to how things might go for a Franchise during the event. When former goaltender Carey Price completely spaced out on the name David Reinbacher, their first round pick with the fifth selection, many Habs fans were confused, especially when he didn’t say Matvei Michkov, which is the name many were expecting.
Canadiens General Manager Kent Hughes said it was a tough choice to pass on the talented Russian who is stuck in the KHL for three more seasons, opting to select the Austrian defenseman who was considered by the NHL Central Scouting Rankings to be one of the highest ranked European amongst all blue-liners. With their only second round pick sent to the Colorado Avalanche for veteran forward Alex Newhook, this was a pretty quiet draft for the “Blue, Blanc, and Rouge” and their fans aren’t too happy about it.
Arizona Coyotes
For a franchise on the brink of being evicted from yet another arena and most likely spending their last season in the desert before eventual relocation, this club chose to draft Dmitri Simashev with the sixth overall pick and Daniil But with the 12th overall pick, two players who are talented but certainly not the best players available on the board in those slots and neither skater will be able to play soon, as they are both locked into KHL contracts, meaning this franchise will be in a different city with a possible different name by the time one or both of these players join the big club. With the majority of their picks being goaltenders who need more development, be it at the American College or European Pro levels, this was a very underwhelming draft for a team on the brink of major changes.
Toronto Maple Leafs
With all of the expiring contracts and big contracts on the table for new GM Brad Treliving, it was going to be tough for him to do anything major with only three picks in the entire draft. With their first pick in the First Round since 2020, the Maple Leafs snagged center Easton Cowan with the 28th overall pick. He was slated by many scouts to be a late-second round/early-third round pick, and wasn’t the best talent available when that choice was made. Not much of a splash for a franchise desperately looking to make changes and to end the longest Stanley Cup drought in the league.
That concludes our National Hockey League Draft Winners and Losers Review. Check out all the updated NHL Lineups, NHL Schedules, standings, future odds, team stats, recent news, picks and parlays and betting tips, right here at Point Spreads.
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