The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL Draft 2023 is in the books, time will tell where this draft will rank in history

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Max Bultman and Corey Pronman take a look back on the 2023 NHL Draft, focusing on some of the more surprising picks from the two day event in Nashville. The guys look at some of the more prominent names taken in round two, including Gavin Brindley, Andrew Cristall, and Damian Clara, who was one of five goaltenders taken in the second round. Plus Corey gives his picks for what teams stood out overall at this years draft, ahead of a quick look at who will standout at the 2024 NHL draft.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGo to grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestionsNuts.com is offering new customers a free gift with purchase and free shipping on orders of $29 or more at Nuts.com/hockey23 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman and Corey Promben here for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. I say that every time, this time I meant it, this is the third of the week, Corey. We are finally done with the 2023 NHL draft. Third in three days. Third and three days. That's right. So, hey, it's a big week for the Prospect Series here.

But let's dive right in here. I want to talk about one guy we maybe didn't spend as much time on. in the Wednesday night episode right after the draft. Easton Cowan, I think this was of the first round picks, the one that maybe surprised us the most. Yeah, and it surprised me the most. I mean, it was not surprising.

I've seen the London night kids who have a big season go high before. That story is a new. You know, Easton kept getting better as a season went along. Had a great playoff for London, scored at a point per game. Raid played a big role. right at the top of their lineup as they went into the final. They lost to Peterborough, but they were right there,

and he played a big role. He's a good skater. He's very competitive. So I get the upward trajectory from Easton. And then when I was watching, I just was like, okay, he has offense, but I don't know if his lead offense. He competes well, but he's barely 5 foot 11. So there's a pro, there's a projection question.

Like, what is he ultimately? Like, who does he remind you of? you know if the people who really really like him will say well he could be sirelli it's like i get it but like this is like when we talked about how like Andrew cristoll or rightly high can be the next brilliant points like you know there's a reason they went in the third round or the second round it's there's there's risk variables there so i that's where i had struggled a little bit with with cowen but i think someone would say well then toronto should trade down um i don't know if that was an option

he kind of went through this story made with eager chinikov where columbus was like, hey, we can't trade down. He's going to go. And I believed if they had traded down, you know, whatever it was, 10 spots, 15 spots. I talked to enough teams out there who were high on the player. Quite a few teams actually that were high on the player that I think, and Toronto kind of knew this that I don't think they could trade down. And so if they wanted the player, that's what they needed to get them. You know, like I said, I have some skepticism based on what I've seen of the player that I think

he's going to be worth that pick, but at 28, it's no different than 30th, no different than 48. It's, you know, the top tier's already gone. So you just take the guy you like and it fits the traits you're looking for. Sometimes in the kind of aftermath of a pick like this, you kind of hear from other people around the league who maybe will go, ah, we had a similar thought on him, or while that surprised me, what are you hearing from league people on this one? Yeah, divided some kind of said the things I said at the beginning. They're like, yeah, he's nice player, but, you know, X, Y, and Z. What is he, is he just going to be? is he more like making a ball in six four in the NHL and I'm like no like that's guys he's on the

up up and up like he's going to be a good player this is going to be a kind of guy you win with and you know we were we were going to target him you know really early so it's like that's it's more divided like but yeah like you said that happens like you know I think you know if if we hadn't been covering say Simashev in the way we had been in the months leading up that would have been the one where like whoa he went where like he went ahead he was he was the first Russian picked, not Mitchkoff, you know, that would have been a surprise, but we, I think we're at least on that one a little bit, but you're right. And then we would have made the calls around the league, and when I would have learned that plenty of teams had Simashev as their top

ranked defenseman in the draft. Yeah, absolutely. Another guy went late. I don't think we got to last night was David Edstrom. And this is a player who we talked about his rise coming out of the World U-18s. It was a really good effort. And he ends up going at 32, which, you know, I don't think that's a bad spot, certainly, but at one point it seemed like maybe he had a chance at the top 20. Why do you think he ultimately made it down to 32? I think there's just an offense question there, and he had a really good U-18 World Championship. I think there were some teams that had wondered at Felix Nielsen, who went in the second round to Nashville. If he had been available in that tournament, whether Edstrom would have had the kind of role he had at the February U-18 Five Nations,

for example, Nielsen was the first line center at that, and Edstrom was the second line center at that tournament. So I think maybe even though we saw Etchen's great office of production at the 18 worlds, we would have wondered whether that was just maybe more of an opportunity thing than whether he actually has a lot of skill and he didn't have giant scoring numbers in the J20 league this year. But I guess that I like the player. Again, I'm not saying he's going to me this big time scoring in the NHL, but I think there is some offense in there. And I just saw a guy that, I mean, I think Vegas is thrilled to get him a third or two, is that that's the kind of guy they just want to Stanley Cup with and they just get another guy.

You know, will, like with a lot of Vegas prospects. actually ever reach the roster, we'll find out. But, you know, they, they developed Nick Haig into what he is right now and he has kind of those traits with the, with the size and the, and the competitiveness. So I could see Edstrom being a Vegas golden night sometime in the next few years. Yeah. One more thing on the first round before I guide us into day two here. We, we talked plenty about, obviously, Reinbacher and Mitchcoff in their placement yesterday, but with the, the window of time that's passed, I'm wondering, what, what did you? you hear from teams about what they thought of Reimbacher at 5, Mitchcoff?

I know this is where you had it going in. So clearly there was some buzz about this. Right. It's, again, because I think most people in the league love Reimbach. It's not universal, but there was plenty of Reimbacher love. And there's plenty of Mitchcoff love too. But it all came, I think it was less about Reimbacker, more about Mitchcoff. I feel like Mitchcov was a binary question.

You were either in or you were out for all kinds of reasons in terms of the contrary. in terms of the geopolitical issues, in terms of the player type, some people did have, you know, there were some teams I talked to who said rush stuff aside, we worry how his game's going to translate to the NHL. So there was a whole bunch of questions in Mitchcoff

that, I guess I just think, feel like it was just very binary. There was a whole lot of teams like, oh yeah, we had like eight or nine kind of thing, but it was more like all the lines like you were in or you out. And I just felt like, in obviously in Montreal's case,

they were out. And I don't think it's unreasonable to be. out on him. Like I said, there were, I think, very real risk factors in Mitchcock's profile. I would have been in. I've talked about why before, but I don't think, I would not criticize Montreal for not taking him. I don't think that's a reasonable take. And, you know, and it's going to be kind of an interesting thing with Mitchcock, because I presume Ryanbacker, maybe not next season, but I'm guessing the year after, he'll be in Montreal. But we're not going to get an answer to Mitchcock for four

years. Because he's going to do three more full seasons in the KHL. And then only in that fourth season after he's been drafted will he likely be in Philadelphia. And only then will we figure out if it's actually going to work in the NHL or not. Right. All right. Let's take a quick break right there. And we'll be right back. We'll talk about the second, second day. All right, we are back. Corey, time to get into what happened on day two. And obviously the picks start flying really fast here. So we're going to cover a lot of ground or, or they're, They covered a lot of ground. We're going to try to zero in on a few of the key items.

And the first one that stands out to me is right away on day two, we get the run on goalie. Chicago kicks it off with Adam Guyon at number 35. In short order, Arizona comes back and takes Michael Robble, who we thought might be the first goalie off the board. Detroit quickly, Trey Augustine. They kind of start flying quick here. They did. And I think it happened maybe about 10 or so picks earlier than we thought. I think people thought Raubel will go in the 30s.

Might even go day one. There was a lot of people who thought he might go day one. Ultimately, he does not. He goes in the 30s to Arizona. And then people thought maybe around the mid-40s is when the next one goes. And then 50s and the 60s and 70s, when you start getting those top goalies. But when Guyon goes at 35 and then Robbill goes a couple of picks later,

the other teams who have a lot of draft picks, like Detroit, are looking at this and seeing how this is unfolding and being like, holy hell, well, now we got only our third ranked goal. now on the table. They did say Augustine was the guy they were targeting. Now, I don't know what that means in terms of ranking, but they said Augustine was their target, and they got them where they wanted to.

Take that for what you will. I will, but like, whatever, then you have where, you know, where Bjorn and went, except, you know, in Anahem taking Clara, who knows what order they had the guys in, but by guy on going on 35, I think it triggered the run on goal, I think it a little bit earlier than people thought.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And I think when we looked at this class, or when we look back on this class, it is going to be fascinating how these guys shake out because there wasn't the clear cut. There was a cluster, and the cluster might have even been bigger than we had.

And Clara, I think, is part of that cluster. There are people in the league who love Clara. You know, he's 6'6. He's quite athletic. I couldn't get there with him on my personal list. I had some concerns on the hockey sense. His season was kind of up and down in Sweden, but you want to be careful when guys switch countries

and go to a much different environment, how you treat guys who don't perform right away. I think that's tough on him. And when he played with the national team, the Italian national team, mind you. But when he played with his international tournaments, he was played very well, including at the World Championships B level, where he played against men and had it and showed well, again. Which is the third level, right? No, no, the second level.

Okay. Second, it's, again, this is why I mean this is tough. So he played the second level world championships, a senior level. I see. And then I think it was the third level of the U-20s, where he was the best goal of that tournament. And then he played at the fourth level of the U-18. World Championships. And there were scouts

going on that tournament. Like there were scouts going to go watch and play against like Estonia and like the Korean 17-year-olds and stuff like that. It's wild. And I don't know how much

they learned from those games to be quite honest, but it was a very interesting case of this season. And I'll be curious to see how Clara develops in the years to come. Yeah, absolutely.

A few more names I want to get to. Gavin Brindley goes off the board really fast. He goes to Columbus. Reunited with Adam Fantelia. That's the fun story, the line mate. But this was,

think your top ranked player coming out of day one. Yes, and it's interesting seeing him going to Columbus. Columbus is getting two players with a ton of speed and competitiveness and offense in them too. I'm not sitting here thinking that Brindley's going to be on a line with Fantilli in Columbus. That's probably not realistic. They have a lot of forward options, and we'll see how it plays out. But it's a great story, nevertheless.

And I think Brinley, even though he's 5'8, maybe he's 5'9, whatever. But it depends what day you measure him on. The Central seemed to have had inconsistent measurements on him. I think he has the skating and the competitiveness to play in the NHL because of that frame and because the offense isn't exceptional. It's why he was available beginning of day two. Washington, I thought it was interesting. They take a guy who we were very curious to see where he would end up going,

Andrew Crystal. They also get Cam Allen, who I think is another intriguing player on day two to kind of mention. Former one defenseman, what was he, like the 30th, fifth defenseman or something like that, So an interesting approach here. Let's start with Crystal for them. Yeah, I mean, that was, again, we had talked about him so much on this podcast over the course of the season. We kind of finally get an answer to the question, where's Andrew going to go. He goes 40, which is right around where I always thought he was going to go. He was never a premium guy in this draft, but he was not a bad player either. He's a very talented player with very significant risks in his profile, not too dissimilar to Bobby Brink. Bobby Brink. Bobby Brink, he was not a bad player. He's a very talented player with very significant risks in his profile. not too dissimilar to Bobby Brink. Bobby Brink went, what, 38? Right in that first 10 picks the second round. And that's where Andrew goes.

And the same thing with Adam Mashrin, that's right where he went. Same thing with Jonathan Dowell, and that's right around where he went. And we'll see whether this next one is the one that works. But, you know, maybe they think he's Alex De Brinkett or something. You know, who knows. Sometimes these swings work on the guys who are super talented offensively,

but have athletic risks, or in the case of Crystal, it's the skating plus the average competitiveness in the size. But again, you know, super talented offensively. One of the best scorers of the WHOHL. Our colleague, Scott Wheeler, as reasonably pointed out, guys who score like he does at his age tend to almost always have NHL careers. So maybe he will have an NHL career. And I'm sure Washington will love that at 40.

Washington knows WHL as well as any organization. In turn, you know, their head scout Ross Mahoney's based out there. very well-continent in that league. I'm sure they did their due diligence on Andrew and felt really confident in him. But when I've watched him this year, I had reservations. I just don't see a lot of guys who look like that

in the NHL with the way with this kind of, you know, this 10-2 skating stride all over the ice without explosiveness. It's, I have my concerns, but he's a good player, and he's got a chance to be an NHL player. Any picks as the day went along that really grabbed your attention for one reason or another?

I don't know about Indeval, individual picks, but there were, you know, and when you have a lot of high picks, you're expected to do well in the draft. But, you know, there was a couple of teams that I thought had really strong, I guess, string of picks on day two. And I liked first what Buffalo did, right, the start their day two. I criticized them in my article on their day one, not because I don't think Zach Benson's a really good hockey player, but I looked at their system. I was like, okay, it's Benson and Matt Savoy and Noah O'Sland and Yerick Coolich and J.J. Peturka and Peyton Krebs and Brooklyn. And Brooklyn. Kapulte Pov and a lot of small guys.

And then the next pick is Anton Wolberg. 6-3 center who skates well. He plays hard. And I'm like, okay, at least I can, that's it. I like the player and I like the fit in this organization. And the next two picks are big defensemen who compete, are physical and skate well and Maxim Sturback, Evan McCarthy. You know, I think in an ideal world, Buffalo would have liked to get one on Demetrison

Mishavit. lander there at 13 did not happen. You know, in a draft they didn't have defensemen, lo and behold, three defensemen went in the top 11. It's funny how that works out. But they get too good defensemen. And I do think it's interesting that the position that they are in by virtue of already having Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlene is these

defensemen don't need to have this like super high end puck moving component that for Sturback, I think in particular wouldn't necessarily be a selling point. But because... And or McCarthy. Right. But if you're going to pair them with one of these two, really high-end offensive players, it can work just fine where they're a really good kind of number two on the pair. I think Sturback could have a very nice career, never having to make a skills play.

Yeah. Yeah. And the other team that I thought really had a good day to was Seattle. And, you know, again, they had a bunch of high picks. You were supposed to do well when you have those high picks. But I like the comment, you know, with Edward Schaulay, the big swing on the skill at 20, then the next three picks in whatever order they were, were Carson Rakeoff from kids. Kitchener, Oscar Fisker Moldegard from HV 71, and Lucas Drakosevich from Tri-City, a lot of talent in those four Bix combined. Different degrees of skill and risk. Oscar Fisker Moldgarde is more of the steady all-around competitive player.

Dragasevich is like the high-end offensive type who you're not really sure if you can defend in the NHL, Carson Rakov, all the tools, not always the most consistent, kind of like with Shaleh a little bit, but the combination of those four players, I think, is a very very intriguing combination of traits. And I could see one or two of those guys being long-time NHL players. I think Dragasevic in particular is an interesting one for them because they haven't had like the really high-level deed. They get Riker Averence who's having a really nice start to his career.

And I think it really shows how concerned the league was by Dragon-Selich is defending. Yeah. Like you looked at his numbers and it's like top 10, top 15 pick numbers. And there he is in the 50s. Yeah. No doubt. But I think it's a swing worth taking for Seattle. Seattle, especially at that point in the draft for what their pipeline has looked like.

I agree. Yeah, absolutely. All right, one more thing before we let everybody go here. I want to turn your head. I'm sure that I'm sure you'll love this to the 2024 class. You get exactly three hours of downtime between the 2023 draft in this one. But I do think you've already begun your work on the 2024 class. So I just want to kind of put some feelers out.

What can people look forward to a year from now? Well, you know, I think that class is Headline by Maclin Celebrity. You know, coalizsman from the program is a great player, but Spacela Breen for me is the guy heading into next year, checks every box you want to play, the skating, the skill, the hockey sense, the competitiveness. He looks like a true number one pick, a guy who, after Badaard,

whether it's Carlson, whether it's Ventilly, whether it's Will Smith, he would be in that conversation with those guys. It might even be at the top of those conversation with those guys. He's a really good player, and then you get to Cole Eisenman and Ivan Demadov, another small winger from Skah. Let's go.

One more year. Have we heard this story before who is super talented offensively? And there's already this debate going on in Russia, who's better him or Mitch Kahl? That'll be a fun debate over the next few years. But then after those guys, I think it turns to the fact that there's some really good defensemen in next year's draft. I think, you know, you have Artem Lefshunov in Green Bay. You have Sam Dickinson in London. You have Aaron Carey.

How are you in Finland? You have Karia Kempchuk in Calgary. and Charlie Ehrlich and Brandon, who I think form a really good group of defensemen. And this group of defensemen came up in the context of discussing, say, David Reinbach or Demetri Sivischoff or any of the top defense picks in this year draft where people always say, well, we can always get one of them next year.

Teams would say this. No, or fans. Teams would never say this. That's crazy talk to them. They don't think that way, yeah. Well, because that's not how reality works. Let's say, we'll use Montreal again. let's say you are Montreal

you're picking fifth overall yeah who's, I mean that's a tough division who's to say they're not picking first overall next season

sure or you know if you had gone into the 2020 draft the old I think is going into the dozen 20 draft

we that was the common thought is there's so many good defensemen in this draft and by so many good defensemen

there was like five and whatever it was old power Simon Evanston Luke Hughes Brian Clark and

am I am I missing one Owen power Simon and Luke Hughes Grant Clark that might be it No, it was the four.

And it's like, okay, well, if you're Seattle, you're not passing on Madibaneers because he's a really good player. And he's just won the calder. So you're not always in a position to pick a defenseman or you can have a really good year. And all of a sudden you're not in the lottery anymore. It's, uh, you do need more than one defenseman also. Oh, yeah. I mean, you look at the Stanley Cup champion. They had six defensemen.

You would never hear a GM say, well, we picked the center last year. we don't really, you know, or we can wait on center. We'll get a center next year, right? Yeah, I mean, just the team you cover just pick two centers with top ten picks and back to back years. And, yeah, I look at that draft and I can't confidently sit here and tell you any of those guys are going to be better than Ryanbacker. They might be.

They might not be. If I put a gun to my head, I said I would have one of them ready to hit of Ryanbacker right now. But a lot changes in the year, you know, where would Semishev and Tom Philander have been on my preseason ranking compared to Cam Allen or some other defensemen going into this year's draft.

But early on there does seem to be, at least at the outset, a more premium defenseman at the top of the next year's draft in terms of the guys that really stand out. And I think what's going to be fascinating in next year's draft in terms of the defenseman front is the debate around Aaron Kivaharayu

because he is small. He's 5 foot 9 and he is a good, not an elite, skater, but he's so smart, like crazy smart offensively. And I'm going to be really curious how that debate unfold, because we saw what Quinn Hughes in his draft year. He goes a little bit lower than people thought, but maybe he went too low, but he was an elite skater. That's not what Aaron is. So I'll be really curious a year from now where Aaron Karahar you actually does go in the draft. So do you think it helps him, though, that he will presumably be playing a significant portion of the season against men? Yes.

Oh, yeah, for sure. And he's probably going to be at the world juniors. You're going to get a lot of questions answered on how he plays up levels. Yeah, absolutely. Any final thoughts here, Corey, from Nashville before we let everybody go? I mean, I thought it was just a great week here. I didn't think this draft was all that unexpected. I thought, you know, I think we all like to see more trades and see some action.

And some NHL guys moved, too. I know a couple did, but not as many as maybe I would have hoped there were. And, you know, I always lament our media colleagues for stirring the trade stuff when there's not really anything there. And they did it and they did it again this year. But I did it too. You know, and I said, like, this seems like the year there's going to be a trade in the top 10. Mitchkov is the perfect storm. And it wasn't true.

And it did seem like it, though. It did seem like if I don't know. And there was all that reporting that Montreal was entertaining, you know, offer XYZ. I don't think, like, you know, Eisenman, when he talked to Wednesday, night. I think he said that they talked about trading back at both of their first-run picks, and the offers both times were really interesting, but at the end it came

back to, they wanted to pick those two players. And I imagine a lot of teams had that exact same dynamic. Yeah, and again, it's hard to know all the conversations you hear about conversations that happened afterwards. But at the end of the day, there were no trades, and there definitely wasn't that splashy trade to go get Mitchcove that would have been fascinating

to watch. But in the end, I agree. I think it was really great event and and I gotta say it was a really cool moment at the very end in the seventh round there Tom Fitzgerald trading a pick to David Boyle to make his last pick in Nashville I thought that was a really cool moment something I'll remember and goes up again and think who actually don't mind as a player I was a little surprised I wasn't shocked I heard afterwards the peak teams weren't very high which was obvious by the fact that he was there in the seventh round but but I like the play so maybe he'll get a couple games from them at some point absolutely all right that's going to do it for

us today and from us from Nashville. Thanks for following us all week at the NHL draft. I'll be back with more for you soon. Thanks.