Quick one.
We introduced our 2023 NHL Draft model this week, and cowardly dropped the model’s ranking (THIS IS NOT A MOCK DRAFT) at the bottom.
But let’s take a moment to appreciate how good this 2023 group is, comparing them to the previous years. We go back in our data to 2008, and looking at the Points value component of the model, Michkov, Fantilli and Bedard all rank in the top10 among forwards.
Matvei Michkov is the best player out of Russia in our sample, though it doesn’t go back to Oveckin and Malkin of course. Fantilli is only behind Jack Eichel and Connor Bedard is the best one out of the WHL.
Leo Carlsson would be just outside the top30 and only comes behind Elias Lindholm and William Eklund from the SHL.
Will Smith, Gavin Brindley or Andrew Cristall would be around the 50th rank on points. Smith, as well as Gabe Perrault are in the top10 of USHL forwards too, Smith only coming behind Jack Hughes and Alex Turcotte.
Moving on to defensemen, David Reinbacher ranks 5th historically behind the OHL group of T dA, Ryan Ellis and Evan Bouchard, with also Quinn Hugues ahead of him.
But he ranks as the best prospect out of Europe on points, ahead of Rasmus Dahlin or Victor Hedman, or recent beast David Jiricek.
However, if we consider Win Shares as a another metric to assess the overall impact of defensemen, Reinbacher is still high, at the 17th rank, but also highlights how this 2023 group of defensemen doesn’t have a generational talent in it.