The Hockey PDOcast - 2023 Draft Picks We Liked

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Mitch Brown joins the show to help work through what teams did at the 2023 NHL draft, and talk about some of our favourite picks.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Villapovich, and joining me is my good buddy Mitch Brown. Mitch, what's coming? I am so excited to have a day off from the NHL going crazy or saying that it's going to go crazy and then nothing actually happens. Well, you're going to have a few days. You know what? We're going to have a few days off here for you.

And then I expect you after the weekend to really just get needs. deep into pounding 2024 tape and going from there. But I'll give you a few days off. But in the meantime, before we get there, we're going to recap the 2023 draft. We've had a day here to absorb kind of who went where, work through what each team did. And I'm lucky to have you on because as I, as I sat on yesterday's show, I had our colleague, Sean Shapiro on and we kind of talked about draft week from an NHL perspective. And I wanted to save actual pick analysis and prospect talk with you because you're one of the few people in the game who's actually watched enough tape to like tell us about the ankle dorsi flexion of your favorite six round the pick and so we're going to

get into a lot of that here we're going to have some fun i think rather than doing the traditional kind of grades or hot takes about like winners and losers and all the traditional uh post draft analysis i thought instead we could kind of work our way from the top talk about some of our favorite choices highlight some of the key sort of crossroads moments for teams what they did, what they didn't do and kind of go from there. How does that sound to you Mitch? That sounds great. All right, let's do it. Let's try to cover as much ground as we can here in the 50 minutes we got. So the first kind of slight curveball came at second overall, right? Everyone knew Hunter Bernardard was obviously going to go first. And when the ducks went up to the podium and chose Leo Carlson, there was, I think, some initial

surprise just because ever since the lottery had played out and even well before that, we had just all sort of penciled in, Connor Bedard number one, Fantilli number two, and then from there it would be Carlson and the rest of the guys. And, you know, leading up to the draft itself, there was a lot of smoke that I was hearing about how we shouldn't necessarily just lock Fantilli into that slot because the ducks were very enamored with Carlson. They were very intrigued by what they already have seen from him, but also the upside of what he could be in their system. And so I just didn't know necessarily how much to buy into that, right? Because you hear a lot of this kind of smoke and noise in the days leading up to the draft,

but you don't know, especially with the proximity to it, how much of it is just that in terms of trying to drum up talking points and drama and excitement and how much of it is actually valid. And in this case, the Ducks obviously did prefer Leo Carlson because they took him second. And so let's talk about that selection here and kind of their choice to do so and who Carlson is as a prospect because I think we're in alignment here that while it wasn't a conventional pick and I'm not sure I would have made it myself

Carlson himself is obviously a hell of a building block for them moving forward. Yeah, so first off, he's a first overall caliber talent and last year's draft he goes first overall without any hesitation. The difference between him and Fantilli is Fantilli's a better skater.

Carlson's a little bit smarter. The gap in skill level is relatively small, so I think this is a perfectly reasonable justifiable decision for the ducks. I don't have any qualms with that at all. But certainly, in terms of how you look at the way the ducks are constructed, you know, they got McTavish up front, it really seemed like they might go for the harder skill guy in Fantilli. It just kind of seemed like the more natural fit, the guy who brings a little bit more physicality. But yeah, I liked it. And in general, I really like the ducks draft overall. I like they're drafting for quite a while now. They're a

pretty intelligent team. They have some surprises, but oftentimes those surprises ended up end up being the right choice. Yeah, I think I probably would have picked Fantilli just because I feel like I'm kind of, you know, as a bias, drawn more to that type of a skill set. But I will say, I don't think it's certainly egregious by any means and people love Carlson's game. And, you know, he makes for a very interesting center stylistically, as you mentioned, to throw into that organization with McTavish and Zegra's presumably being their other two kind of top center options moving forward. And while McTavish does play kind of more of that rugged physical game, of course, he's obviously more of a shooting slanted option. And also while he is physical, I think Carlson's

sort of range and ground he can cover down the middle is well exceeds what McTavish can do based on his sort of physical skill set. Right. And so kind of throwing Carlson with his defensive awareness and recognition and everything you hear about is hockey sense and kind of feel for the game about playing off of the puck and being in the right places, whether it is offensively or defensively. If you're pairing that up with McTavish and Zegras in particular, that's obviously kind of a very alluring proposition moving forward. All of a sudden, you're checking a lot of boxes now in terms of what these guys could all do themselves. Yeah, and one of the great things about Carlson, too, is you look at the handling skill and the reach,

the ability to pull the puck across his body like it's very Jason Roberts and ask how the puck can be in the corner and then with one move suddenly he's at the far post and it's that type of thing that can be so valuable in the NHL especially when you're on a team that has a lot of skill a lot of speed not so much structure we hope that that comes in place but you have a guy who can take pucks from low percentage areas instantly attack the middle and create something and also just like with Carlson and fantilly too but just the ability to get the puck into a position for your linemates to be able to do something is an incredibly valuable skill. So, and Carlson, they're getting a guy who fits with what they're trying to build.

He can be a play driver. And worst case scenario, he's still probably going to be an excellent top six forward. Well, especially with some, and you and I both, I think every time I've had you on, we're kind of contractually obligated to fawn over the defensive talent that this organization has drafted over the past couple of years and is on the way up, right? At the same time, though, whether it is a Zellweger or a Minchikov or Drysdale or you go on down the line, even Jackson LaColman there, obviously all those guys are very fluid players, I think for them to be at their best, or at least in the early years, to be at their most fun in terms of their development. There's going to be a lot of risk-taking

and a lot of kind of playing up-tempo and sort of, you know, detaching offensively and trying to get in the play and that positional interchangeability. And so I have, I have, imagine that part of the allure here as well is you're not obviously drafting for need or you're not going like, all right, well, we're going to sacrifice future upside for more defense. That's not what they're doing here by any means. But I think with Carlson's offensive skill set in place as a distributor, but also on top to some of this defensive utility that we're talking about, that kind of makes a lot of sense for them as well to sort of give those guys a bit of a break and help them as well. Right? It feels like this is kind of a piece of the puzzle as a

is necessarily kind of just like one piece in isolation. Yeah, that's a great point, Dimitri. I agree 100%. Okay, so Columbus was up next. And speaking of noise, like an hour before the draft, I was hearing a lot of they're going to take Will Smith at third overall. And I think part of that was working under the assumption that Fantilli was going to go second. And I think maybe they potentially preferred Will Smith to Leo Carlson.

I don't know that for sure. That's kind of what I was hearing. But once Carlson went second, they were pretty quick to run up to the podium and take Adam Fantilli for themselves there. And so if you look at what Columbus did at this draft, I don't know what grade. I don't have it up right now. What grade you and David St. Louis gave them. But I absolutely loved what they did, especially with the backdrop of kind of the past couple drafts they had, where they really just hoarded defensive talent and basically added four or five guys that I really like as long-term assets on the blue line.

And in this draft, they just went very heavy upside with forwards, in my opinion. And so now infusing that organization with that level of skill up front is kind of a home run, in my opinion. So I think obviously, Fantilli fall into them a third the way they did. I don't know if they had dissipated that heading in. But once that happened, everything else kind of fell in a place. And they wound up with a lot of very intriguing forwards from this class. Yeah. So Gavin Brindley, William Whitelaw, Luca Pinelli, Tyler, Tyler,

These are all really interesting swings for a variety of reasons. And I think the thing that makes this draft kind of interesting for Columbus, there are different archetypes of players, right? Brindley and Pinelli are both insanely hardworking high-paced guys, but Brindley is more of the in-your-face playmaker type. Pinelli is more of a shooter. Whitelaw can do a little bit of everything. Pedal is more of your class, a grind it out down low,

drag the pup to the middle, but you can also sniper it off the rush. And Andrew Strathman was a really nice pickup too. He has a long way to go, but in terms of pure talent handling skill, he's a first round player. It's not all there entirely with him, but the flashes were first round caliber. That's a real nice pickup at 98th. So Columbus walks out of this draft, like even if they don't hit, this is a good process draft through and through and something you can really build up as an organization. Yeah.

Yeah, well, and then as I mentioned, you know, Eurechik, Matajuk, Sposo, and Coolman's in the past couple drafts. Obviously, Cam Lawrence and Josh Plinter, who went a phenomenal job there. You know, on the Fantilli note, there was a lot made heading into the draft about whether he would go back to the University of Michigan or whether he would try to make the jump to the NHL from day one, at least as kind of a cameo. And from everything we've heard, it kind of came down to, I guess, whatever team drafted him and what they preferred, he was kind of open to both options. It certainly sounds now like Columbus is going to try to get him into the NHM and I'm not sure how much of that is just because they obviously have a clear need down the middle

and if he could actually give them positive impact minutes right out of the gate, that would be incredibly useful and how much of it is them just thinking that is the best kind of next logical step for him. How do you sort of feel about that transition for him? Obviously, it seems like he's closer to the show than Leo Carlson would have been, right? It seems like Carlson is almost certainly going to play another year in the SHL before coming over. How do you feel about Van Tilly sort of what we saw in tape from him in his? draft year and whether that can sort of be translated and applied to the way the NHL game is played right now. So in any other environment, I would say put him in the NHL for sure, but he's at the

University of Michigan, a very well-coached, well-structured team that promotes one of the same things that we historically have seen as weaknesses from Fantilli. So sort of the playmaking side of the game, it's not that he can't pass or whatever. It's that it's more, with him it's more flashes than it is consistency. And to be able to achieve his upside when you have that level of tools, that level of physicality. I mean, you're looking at first line, all-star caliber center. To achieve that, the playmaking is going to have to improve. And going back to Michigan is the perfect place to do it, given the environment that's there. Now, the flip side of this is that if he signs in Columbus, who knows what that system, who knows what that team is going to look like

tactically at this point? It's a bit of a wild card. Well, especially with Mike. to Al-Goc is the coach. Yeah. And so, like, personally, I would go back for another year, but I also understand the allure of going straight away. And, and I guess ultimately, it's Adam Fantilli. Like, he's going to be good from the start reasonably. So his development probably isn't going to be impacted too much by it. So either one of those decisions is fine by me. But yeah, I would be Michigan, personally. I mean, you could argue almost that the Columbus Blue Jackets organization has just as many University of Michigan players as the University of Michigan actually themselves, probably should have just went on and hired Brandon Norado to complete the circle here. Yeah, I mean, if you look at their

NHL depth chart down the middle and the extent of it, right now it's Boone Jenner, Jack Roselich, Cole Cillinger, and Sean Corrally. Like, it's obviously, it seems like there is, unless barring some sort of a trade where they go out and they land Elias Linholm or some center of that caliber in the trade market, they're already kind of boxed in financially from a cap perspective, so they're not going to go out and splurge and pre-agency and sign someone, even if that player was available. So there will be premium scoring minutes to go around here. You know, Fantilia obviously didn't look out of place at all in the world championships, I thought. And there was some criticism in our draft guide from his University of Michigan days in terms of how sometimes he could rely a bit too much on that

sort of like bull rush mentality, right, where he would just kind of play by himself and try to take the buck to the net, even if it wasn't there. And there was certainly some of that that I saw on his tape. I also saw a little bit, though, Mitch, of him kind of playing off of Ovaluque Hughes and sort of, you know, finding spots in the offensive zone and then opening up for that one-timer and making himself available. And so if he can incorporate more of that into his game, because I imagine he's going to have a quick sort of adjustment in front of them in terms of trying to do some of the stuff to work for him in the CAA, realizing that he's not athletically superior to everyone out there anymore and him having to sort of adjust the way he plays a little bit. And so if he can

work more of that in terms of finding spots in the offensive zone and playing off the puck, that'll help him from day one. It's easier said than done when it's been so easy for you previously and now you have to change. But that's, I think, sort of the next big step for him if he is going to play in the NHL next season. I mean, I would argue that's already a massive strength for him. that might be the biggest strength of this game other than the raw athleticism. And Michigan is an environment that they want that. They want you getting open between defenders. They want you timing your movements.

They want a lot of east-west instead of planting your feet and so on. And so I think in the NHL, it's going to be a pretty easy adjustment for him to get up to speed with regards to that. So he's going to be the guy to watch. Like, Badard, obviously, he's going to be highlight real player and so on right from the beginning. but Fantilli over the next two years is going to be the guy to watch just to see which direction his game goes because when you have that level of skill, those tools, the ability and the feel for the game, there are so many ways you can go. You know, you can become more of a traditional power forward. You can play more of a finesse game. You can improve your playmaking and so on. So really excited to

see what happens with him. I guess if we're going in order from the top here, probably should have started with the Blackhawks with all the respect to Connor Bardard, right? We kind of jump right into second and third overall. You know, Connor Bernard, first overall, good value. If I was running other teams drafts, I probably would have tried to get him myself, but kudos to Chicago for landing him. Oliver Moore, obviously slipping to them at 19th,

was a nice little surprise for them. I think they said they were trying once he started slipping to actually trade back up and potentially get him. You hear a lot of that rhetoric about teams being like, oh, this guy was so far in a way next on our board. We're very lucky to have him. It's convenient how every team seems to get them. their guy. But in this case, I do actually believe that Moore would have been appealing for them.

And certainly, I wouldn't have let him slip to 19 based on just the upside of his skating and his skill set. You look ahead now and with Bedard and Moore and Lucas Reichel already in place, and even a Frank Nazar, like, that's a very intriguing combination of forwards to just attack you with skill and pace moving downhill. And so I think this is obviously more of a longer game for a couple of those guys. But there will be reinforcements coming that can, I think, theoretically at least keep up with Medard's sort of just like horrid pace that he seems to play at by himself

sometimes. They're going to have an insanely fast team. Oliver Moore, we've talked about it before in the draft retrospective series where players who have tools generally create more advantageous situations and while their reads from those positions might not be perfect, they tend to improve over time. That's the projection with more. And you can mean he's an insane skater.

The fastest man on skates, apparently, at least at his age. And Nick Lardis at 67 was a really good pickup too. He is also insanely fat. 25 goals and 33 games with the Hamilton Bulldogs in the second half. He can turn the corner on just about anyone. Oh, he can beat goals with power. He can beat them with precision.

He can curl the puck around defenders. So this was a draft where they added some upside, a lot of speed. And while I didn't like all of their late round picks, you walk out of there with Nick Lardis, Robin Kanzerov, Martin Misiac, Oliver Moore, that's a real nice draft and you still have to get and you still have to add Connor Bernard into that. Like, that was real good work from them. Mish, put some respect on Marcel Marcel's names. Okay. Okay, in terms of pure name quality,

this, that was also a great addition. There were some, this was a good name draft. It was. It certainly was draft. Yeah. Well, if you look at the last two years, I mean, obviously they've had five firsts, five seconds, five thirds. And, and, they have seven picks already in the top three rounds for 2024. So if you are just going to absolutely tear everything down to studs and rebuild, that is the way to do it. And so it's not a surprise that they're infusing this system with a lot of high-end talent. Let's move on to the sharks at four.

I thought they, speaking of kind of talent infusion into the system, I really like what they've done, Will Smith at four, Quentin Mustie fall into them at 26. I thought he probably should have gone at least a couple picks higher than that. And then one of my favorite picks in this entire draft was Luca Cagnone, going 123rd. We had him on our draft guide at 34th. You know, the sharks still obviously have a long road ahead themselves, but I think we spoke about this last time. They've already promoted a lot of some of these forwards in particular that they drafted the past couple years to playing together

with the barracuda and the AHL. And so they're getting a lot of that kind of continuity playing together. And I'm curious to see how that gels moving forward as these guys hopefully play meaningful roles for the sharks moving forward. And so just from that perspective in terms of all the forward talent already in place, this was a pretty good draft for them adding, adding Smith and Mustie. Absolutely. And something that I like that the sharks do is that they pick skill in different archetypes. So like Brandon's about at 71st. That is not a high scoring player by a stretch of the imagination. But you watch him play and you're like, oh, this dude can really pass. Like he had some of the best passes I saw all season long. And so he's a bigger guy, more about.

about driving the net and so on, but the chance that he can expand off that playmaking is there. And then suddenly you're looking at a high upside pick all the same. I mean, you mentioned Kagnoni. Eric Polkamp is an interesting swing on the reigning USHL defense of the end of the year. Big shot, big hitter. So I really liked what they did. Casper Halston in as well kind of fits that mold, big shot, big hitter. Lots of skill, lots upside, lots of diversity in how they picked.

Really liked their work. And it continues to, you know, it continues to build with San Jose. Like you can really see the potential that this organization has. Yeah, certainly. Do you think, because Smith is certainly going to be going to the NCAA next season. In the past, it seems like they've actually kind of why I threw that out, mentioned in terms of how they're getting a lot of these guys into the HL to get them into the organization and start playing together.

Do you think this is a bit of a longer term thing for Will Smith in terms of him probably needing it at least two years in the NCAA before even considering that? Or do you think that it's going to be kind of a one-and-done and they're going to try to get him in some capacity with the San Jose organizations sooner rather than later? I think the goal is one-and-done. They're probably banking on having a similar season to Logan Cooley and giving the fact that they're, well, not Arizona. It's going to be easier to get him to come out of college after the first year. Now, the interesting part of it will be, will he play with Perrault and Leonard? I think everyone's probably saying yes.

the sharks are probably going to want to get him a look away from those guys, see how he gels with their team. So probably one and done, and then some AGL time if you can't make teams straight out of camp after that. Well, and I imagine the capitals will also want that to happen because I think they're probably going to want to see Leonard playing down the middle, right? That was a very big question for us heading into this.

And when the Canadians who were going to talk about here at five, they were a very common pick to take Leonard at five. And I think even when I had Cam Robinson on for our mock earlier in the week, we talked about this at great length. I was like, man, if you're going to take him there and if you're the halves, you need to make sure that he's actually going to have a chance to play center as opposed to just picking another winger, considering the organizational depth chart. And he was pretty confident that we might see Leonard play center as soon as next season and potentially reconfiguring those players. So I don't know what your sort of mileage is on that and kind of those two guys may potentially even interchanging spots to see them. just kind of in different roles. I think when you watch the NDP this year, Leonard often played more of the center duties type of stuff,

the down low coverage, the middle lane attacks and so on, much more than Smith and Burrow most nights. But I think it's really Cutter Goce, he's going to impact how this works. Do they want, does Boston College, that is, want Cutter Goce playing center? Do they want him on the wing? And who do they want him with? I think there's a real chance that we see one of Lender or Smith as the two. see, at least to start the season, at least at some point, maybe when things get tough. And so they're going to get the reps. I really hope so anyway.

Yeah. Okay. Well, let's get to the haves then. They obviously talk David Reimbacher fifth overall, and I hope I did a better job of pronouncing his name there than Carrie Price did. You know, I feel for him because on the one hand, people are just sort of mad that he's not Madfay Michkov and I kind of get it to the extent that if I were the habs, I certainly would have either strongly considered trading back and accruing a bunch of assets the way it was rumored or just taking my shot with Mitchcov and kind of swung for the fences if I were them. At the same time, though, I think people are sort of unfairly equating the fact they didn't do that to all of a sudden being like, well, Ryan Bacher was a terrible pick because of all these reasons

that aren't really based in reality, right? I think it's fair to one. about the upside and the ceiling offensively and the puck handling and all of that. But he can still be a very effective player and wind up being a very interesting piece for them moving forward without necessarily hitting a lot of those other sort of checkpoints that people are hoping for. I'm sympathetic to the idea that he's a bit of a man pick. I would have preferred some of the forwards. Mishkov to start Benson, even, Leonard.

I think they probably fit better with what Montreal was trying to do. I think they have higher upside. Like if I were to put those three and Reinebacher all together and say, who do I think has the highest chance of being the best player in this group? Rehnbacher is probably second last or last. And so it's a very, it was an interesting pick too because I think they came out afterwards and said it was about asset value. They think that six foot two right shot defensemen, you look at Noah Dobson,

you know, he might be an untouchable for the Islanders or something of that like is what they said. And so that was kind of their mindset. I personally think that's a little bit of faulty. Now, on the other side of it, Reinhbacher is really freaking good. Like, that's just the reality of it. He's got a ton of potential. He's already an NHL caliber defender. Like, his timing especially is incredible. Like, he's on guys the second they touch the puck, the second they receive a pass, the second they lift their stick off the ice, he's got the puck. It's going back the other way. And we saw in the second half the season, his skill level improved, he was more confident on breakouts. You see him start doing more advanced plays. He started seeing more activation.

And there's a lot of value in guys who just simply want to be a difference maker with the puck. He does. The reeds will have to improve. The skill definitely has to improve. But that's a really, really good leaping off point. And if he can improve that, you're looking at a very clear top pairing defenseman. Yeah, that's an interesting point that you make that I mean, listen, an 18-year-old who chewed up huge minutes for a pro-league team and did so not only effectively but off the back of like very projectable and translatable tools themselves, especially defensively, as you mentioned. That is a very intriguing prospect. And I'm with you in the sense that while I get like a six foot two good skating right shot defenseman is very hard to find

and teams that don't have that in their organizations generally have to pay a significant premium to acquire them. At the same time, a high-level scorer who can be, who at least has the theoretical ceiling that Matt Faye Mitchcock has, if he puts it all together and comes over in a couple years and keeps that development moving upwards, those are players that you almost can't find unless you take them in the top five of a draft top 10 or pay a significant premium as like a destination landing spot for them in free agency or be a trade. And so in this case, I would have preferred prioritizing that with the fifth overall pick and then trying to find defensive talent later on in more kind of creative strategic ways. But I don't think that

necessarily means that we have to turn around and all of a sudden bash Reimbacher as a prospect because it seems like there's been a bit of a trickle over from the disappointment of him not being Mitchkoff into the evaluation of him, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and he'll be a fan of favor. Like you watched this dude play and this is the guy, every team has a player like Reimbocker, the fans love him because he kills plays, he's physical, and he's got real flashes of fun, offensive transition creativity, right? So people are going to really like him no matter what. And I think as well, most draught research suggests that picking a defenseman, unless they're like, you know, super high-end talent or whatever, this high in the draft usually doesn't work out. And this,

that's also, I think, part of the backlash towards it is that the track record of top 10 defensemen unless they're hot, unless they are the top guy or one of the top guys on the draft just isn't

great, but of course past failures does not dictate future success and I'm their future failure and I think

Rehnbacher has a real chance. Would I put money on him being the fifth best player from this draft? No.

Do I think he'll be a top 10 player from this draft? Absolutely. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the chances

of him like not being one of the 15 or 20 best prospects of this class is incredibly low. And, and I don't,

And I don't know. The upside versus ceiling, I guess, is an interesting conversation to have. They're also kind of getting enamored with one prospect and him being the guy you want. And then potentially, like, especially if you know that someone right behind you on the draft board is going to take him if you don't. And in this case, it seemed like the haves were very aware of the fact that the coyotes probably would have just taken him at six that they hadn't taken them themselves. That sort of, I think, incentivize him to just pull the trigger and do it as opposed to them. messing around or trading down or hoping to get them elsewhere. And I guess that's an interesting conversation as well in terms of just like if you love someone in that way, just taking them

even if you feel like or know that it might be a bit of a reach or a bit high or kind of like the value proposition is a bit off as opposed to just staying so disciplined about being kind of like emotionally detached and calculated and just being like, well, he's probably not worth the fifth overall pick. So we have to take someone that actually fits that mold instead. And I know that there are guys who have fit or improved and become stars like Mo Cider, or Brady Cucchuk. These are guys who were seen as reaches to some degree and were seen as their team was enamored by them and they thought they wouldn't be able to get them later.

So they picked them. But for those two guys, there are so many more, the Bruins, 2015 drafts, Barrett Hayton. Oh, yeah. The comments that said after that draft were crazy. Soderstrom, if we want to keep going down that path. Philip Brobird. Even Montreal has Yaspari Kotkinemi, right?

They picked him over Brady Kachuk. So it's a tricky game to play. It's a tricky game to play. Well, Soderstrom, Hayden, that's a ringing endorsement for our next topic here,

the Arizona Coyotes. But first, we are going to take our break, and then we're going to talk about them and play more on the way back who are listening to the HockeyPedioCat streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Hour. Breaking down the top stories in hockey and Elliot Friedman every day.

The Jeff Merrick show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here on the Hockey-Pedio cast, joined by Mitch Brown, talking about the 2023 NHL draft. Mitch, we went through the first five selections. Let's get into the coyotes at 6 here where I think that really caught people off guard when they took Dimitri Simechiev sixth overall and then even taking a step further, Daniel Bout, 12th overall. I really, I get that, like, we got to stay consistent with this, right?

If I think the HABs should have taken Michigov at 5, I obviously think the coyotes should have just taken Mitch Cobb themselves at 6 and it would have made sense for them. I mean, what more would that organization love than the guy who they don't even have to worry about paying for the next couple of years? But in this case, I love the prospect, the Simasheb is so much that once Reinbacher went fifth in particular, I don't think it was nearly as egregious as it was made out to be. It was certainly a bit high. I would have had a more kind of in that eight range or so after Mitchgov, but a six-foot-four defenseman who moves the way he does and has at least the theoretical

offensive skills that he does, even though it hasn't necessarily translated into offensive production yet, is so intriguing to me that I can't wait to see how his development goes over the next couple years. Yeah, and that pick made a lot more sense when you saw what they did at number 12, right, with DeNeil boot his teammate, and also giant dude who was very skilled, plays with a ton of finesse. So, like, this wasn't a, this wasn't picking lower upside guys for more a certainty. This was a draft where they were swinging, and in their eyes, they hit some home runs. And I, like, I get that logic and I agree with it. Like, I think that's how you should be picking, just because their perspective is a little bit different on

what that entails doesn't necessarily make it bad. Again, would I pick Michkov at 6th? Yeah, absolutely. I would have picked Benson there too. I would have picked a lot of other players before I would have picked Shimishia of four or five at least. But the upside isn't gigantic like you said. Like to move like that, to be able to evade pressure like that, it's not even just straight line speed. It's that he can fake one way, sell it to any hockey player in the world because of how deep he gets how he turns his body the entire opposite direction that he's about to go and then instantly flips his toes and goes the other way. Like, it's hard for five foot 10 defensemen to do that. He's six foot four and he's one of the best in the world at evading back pressure. Like,

there's so much upside here. And of course, we can talk about maybe he doesn't have the production or whatever, but he's also in, he's also playing in Russia, an environment that has been particularly hostile to offensive focused defensemen. There's more skill here than we've seen. I'm certain of it. If we were playing in the OHL, for example, I have serious doubt that this would even be considered a reach, like, just because we would have seen a lot more offerings from him, say, Mikhail Sergachev level in his draft year. Well, I just, I mean, if they had just taken Benson 12 overall, especially after he fell, right, like, I would have viewed this as an absolute haul for them. And I would have been like, I love unequivocally what they did here. I think Boud is like an interesting players certainly. I just I just wish they would have gone that out, especially after taking Simehsev 6th.

But listen, Simeshv is 6.14. Daniel Bood, 6'5, the goalie, they took 30th overall 6'7. Combined that with Geeky at 6'4 last year at Maverick-Lamuro at 6'7 as well, they're building an NBA team here. And it's an interesting strategy. Certainly all these players, as we mentioned, have actual skills as well, right? it's not just purely a size type of thing. But yeah, maybe they feel like their best way to getting back into that Sun's arena

is lending them some depth here with some of the size. So who knows? But I'm fine with it. Like I said, if they had taken Benson 12, I would have given them an A plus plus here. But I just wanted to make the note on Simashev as well, right? Like a lot of these models that I think mean well and are certainly intriguing, if it's centered around using point totals, it's just going to be broken for a defenseman like this, right?

Like you cannot be like, oh, he has an 8% chance or whatever of being an NHL player because he produced at this level because that's just almost entirely besides the point to what his trajectory looks like in terms of the skills he actually has. Yeah, absolutely. And I think as we get better at this, I know there are NHL teams that they inform their models with, subjective but still data that they have from their scouts. So like the scouts will give them grades

and so on. And then that gets input and included into how they build their draft board and so on. And I think as the public gets more comfortable and as more information like that is published, like say our draft guide or whatever. So if anyone actually wants all the grades from our draft guide to be able to incorporate them into a model, hit me up, I will give it to you. But yeah, so I think as we start doing more and more of that stuff, we're going to get more accurate. and that type of analysis is going to improve dramatically. Yeah, I mean, man, his, the amount of ground he can cover in the King Andre Miller comp, I just, I'm infatuated with it.

So I love Demetri Semishev there, and I don't hate that pick at all. The Flyers, as we mentioned, took Mitch Cove at 7, they took Bonk at 22. Then even if you want to go further down with like Denver Barkie and Alex Turnick, you and David really loved their draft, and it's hard to argue with. it, especially once you start with a foundational building block like Mitch Kovats have been falling to you. But this should be pretty exciting for Flyers fans to legitimately signal that things are hopefully going to be different for this organization and what they value and what they prioritize moving forward. Yeah, anytime you pick Denver Barkie, Colkneubel and Carter

Southern in the same draft, you're looking for upside. You're looking for intelligence, but you're still also trying to add tools and size to your organization, right? Southern is a big offensive, tilted defense, who has a ton of runway, so much upside, so much potential. But then you get Denver Barkie,

who will play in the NHL and annoy the crap would have everyone nonstop. And Cole Canoble, who brings a well-rounded offensive game, can probably play in your bottom six, maybe a 3C or something of that nature. So I really like what they did. And something that I continue, something that I mentioned earlier,

is that I like when teams pick upside in different player types. They don't just swing for all the small undersized guys. They don't just pick the tall guys or whatever. And I think Philadelphia had a real nice draft in that mold. Okay, let's, we're going to have to speed this up a little bit because we're through seven teams and we're running out of time here. Do you want to kind of do sort of lightning round style,

jumping around and talking about certain teams and what we like for them and kind of ones that in particular stood out to you in the grand scheme of things? Sounds great. Okay. What's, okay, I'm just going to throw some teams at you. Let's go with the Sabres.

So our Sabres took Zach Benson 13th after he did fall. And I guess my question for you was in terms of trends, right, that we saw this year's draft, what teams were sort of prioritizing, whether there were possible changes in kind of philosophy and stuff, right? Heading in, we're like, all right, this is a pretty weak draft for a defenseman. and yet still, I think we wound up seeing teams move defensemen up their board and find ways to get them, especially in round one where I think like eight of them went. I thought the other thing that I noticed, though, was it did seem like guys with potential foot speed concerns or that were necessarily the fleetest of foot did seem like they fell down teams of boards a little bit. And obviously Benson's got some of the concerns about the size as well.

So it wasn't shocking to see him fall to 13, but nonetheless, it doesn't make it any less wrong in my opinion. Yeah, it was, we had a ranked fifth overall at elite prospects. Would have taken him at fifth overall about hesitation. He's the best playmaker in the draft, the best defensive forward in the draft. The skating will improve because he's already so good at backwards and lateral skating. It will get better. So I thought that was a bit of a mistake, but great for the Sabres to keep him and Matthew Savoy together. And I like the rest of their draft.

You know, they picked some upside. Gavin McCarthy really stands out as sort of a raw but toolsy and physical defenseman who has a lot of offensive upside. So that was some real good work from them. Is Benson their best non, like in terms of having zero NHL reps yet, prospect? Yeah, by far. Really? Over a Yuri Kulich. Yeah. I mean, yeah, maybe in terms of town. I will say, though, Kulich, as an 18-year-old, having the type of production he did in the HL is certainly intriguing.

And I imagine, especially now with Jack Wins and Fortune injury, that's going to keep him out to start the season, there seems like a roadmap there for him. But yeah, I mean, Benson adding him to this system. And then especially, like, you know, they have all of these, like, trees essentially in their NHL lineup, which is these massive guys who can still skate really well, are incredibly skilled. I just love the idea of just, like, throwing a Zach Benson in there as well. And he can certainly keep up with the way they play it. But it's going to be hilarious seeing him kind of, like, interacting with. with Tej Thompson and Owen Power. Yeah, and it's not a slight against Kulich. He's great. He's trying to the top six forward. It's just Benson can be a star. Yeah, especially with his play off the puck and the forechecking and the motor and everything, right? Like if it all comes together for him, I mean, it's going to be almost flawless.

I love what they're doing in terms of just hoarding as much high-level skill as they can, right? I hate when teams get like certain types of players and then they're like, all right, well, you know, we have enough skill. let's let's get guys who can kind of fit rules for us and then just hoping that having one of everything, everyone's going to hit their best case scenario and it's all going to work out. And we know that that's never how it works, right? There's injuries, guys busts, things happen. So just having a wealth of options is always a great thing. I do think they probably at some point will have to because, like, listen, they've got all the guys that are playing for the NHL right now, but also Sabwa, uh, Benson now, Ocelin, Coolidge, Rosen. I think at some point they're probably going to have to

consolidate in some way to clear room for like meaningful playing time for these players in a couple of years. But that probably will just organically work itself out anyways, right? Yeah, absolutely. And if smart teams trade their prospects early. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Okay. Let's get about right here. The Hurricanes taking Radley Nadeau 30th and then Jaden Perrae 95. I tweeted, I wish I could have bet that they would take both them and Gavin Bradley. Now they wound up with only two out of the three, but it was about as predictable as it gets. I think also with their 100th, 126, 158th, 163rd, and 22nd picks, they took players playing in Russian junior leagues. And so it was a very, and I like it. Certainly, I think they maximize the value,

but the combination of that and like taking their sweet time, making some of these picks and calling a time out, it was a very on-brand draft for the Carolina Hurricanes. Yeah, yeah, they're the draft Twitter team, right? Them in Seattle both just pick all the draft for favorites and go for them, you know? They're like 113 points at 54 BCHL games. Sign me up. Yeah, without hesitation. And I respect the way that Carolina and Seattle draft, there's a lot of upside that they're pulling from the draft here,

especially given where they pick. Well, yeah, you look at the crack and they took Shale 20th, Fisker Moulgard, 52nd, Lucas Dragas Savage, 57th, who's probably, I mean, if not certainly, the best offensive defenseman in this class. And especially with the four seconds they had last year, and I think pretty much nailing all of them, at least in terms of early returns. Like, they've done a phenomenal job of taking some swings beyond the first round. Shaleigh, it was obviously 20th, but taking some swings and really building up the organizational depth

in the first couple years of their existence here. Yeah, and shout out to Kaden Price, who has first round tools, first round skill. It just didn't come together consistently. Zacharii Wisdom is the 212 pick that's a great value hardworking intelligent player and so on like they they know how to find skill and this is how you get the franchise

off on the right foot because in a few years you're going to plugging these guys in and it's going to go well yep the Nashville Predators let's talk about them so Matthew Wood 15th Tanemorelandi 24th which you guys had the audacity

of saying left value on the board when they took him there in your trade grades. I didn't write that. Oh, yeah. I don't have to talk to David about that. Felix Nielsen 43, Callalind 46th, which you had a good video on him on Twitter and like all the conversations. I think on the broadcast, they were like, and we say this affectionately, this guy is a grease bag.

And then you watch him play. I only got the one live viewing of him at the top prospects game. And like certainly players were trying, right? And it's a nice showcase. it's a measuring stick for you against your top peers and I like to see how guys acquit themselves in that and then you see Call and Linde enter that game and just try to like fight everyone after the whistle but like still making some plays sprinkled throughout right it wasn't necessarily like all right this is just purely like circus shenanigans like he's got actual substance to his game

but taking him 46 and like the idea of what he could be as an agitator with some of that skill coming together I like that and then Joey Willis at at 111th, we had them 49th on our elite prospects board. So I really liked what the Predators did. Obviously, they wanted to trade up into that top five and potentially take a Mitch Cobb, and they failed in doing so. But sometimes the best moves are the ones you don't make. And in this case, I really just like the number of different sort of options they added into the system here.

Absolutely. And I really liked your little conversation about Lynn. I mean, there's so much talent here, too, hidden by the fact that he just wants to annoy everyone. and he's 150 pounds. Like he gets the worst of every check, but that doesn't stop him from trying to crush everyone who's within a 10 meter radius of him. And I think Neil said, like,

everything points to this guy being an undervalued talent, potentially first round caliber, Tannen Mollendick, Nashville has success with these type of defensemen. They really do. And when you can skate like that, man, there's a real chance that you're going to figure it out. And Matthew would.

I mean, this guy's an offensive genius. He holds, like, his ability to draw pressure, pass through it, some of the best we've ever seen in the recent years. So, like, really impressed with their work. This is, this is a really nice draft from Nashville. To be honest, I wasn't expecting this, and I'm glad they pulled this off. Do you feel like Cam was saying that he thinks he saw enough from Matthew Wood in terms of progression as, like, in terms of his mobility last year, to feel like that skill could actually kind of come together for him, because I have to admit, I was,

I was nervous when I saw stuff like sluggish feet and stuff like that as, as the, as the skill. scripters of his game. Do you feel that way? Because certainly the production was there and it's very encouraging, but that could potentially be a roadblock for him. I think at 15th, though, it's considering the size and the skill, like it's a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't necessarily reach that full upside. But I think that's something to certainly kind of consider with him. He has the skill to play in the NHL with skating as a weakness. It will have to improve, but it's on the right path. And his playmate can improve a lot this season, specifically his ability to draw pressure and pass through it. And that's really the key for his development. Once he started

doing that, it was full steam ahead on the projection. 15 is good. I think he's going to play. And there's a real chance that he's top six forward, maybe even top line when you have that level of puck skills and intelligence. So yeah, it's a perfectly good pick. Skating will improve. And when you have that level of intelligence skill, every small little improvement you make skating wise affects every part of your game and improves it. It gives you more and more options. Yeah, we don't we don't have to do a whole Melendike thing. We've done enough on the PDO cast on him. I will just say I saw a lot of people being like, well, with his 30 points and 60 games or whatever, there was a bit of a reach. He was ranked kind of more so in the 30s and a lot of publications. I can guarantee you that he was not making it past 31 at Colorado with their two picks and with Carolina at 30th there. One of those teams was certainly taking him. Now, as we mentioned in the Reinbach conversation, that's not necessarily. a reason to justify making a pick if there's other players that you think are available there. But I just, I mean, beyond the organizational track record of getting the most out of players

like this with their development, I think the foundation purely defensively, even if the offensive involvement and activity never fully comes together and keeps tantalizing us, similar to what we talked about, Simishab, obviously doesn't have his size necessarily, but just that rush ability defensively and what he can kind of do in that end with the way the game is played now, like he is going to be a good NHL player and how good he is, obviously comes down to what the next couple years of development look like for him. Yeah, and I struggle to say a 24th overall pick is bad when the difference between the 20th and the 50th guys are so slim. It's like Easton Cowan, right? People are saying it's a reach,

it's off the board. It's like, yeah, it's a little high for me, but I also get it. If he's your guy and you think he's that talented, the difference between these guys is so, so, so, so mean. Like, it's perfectly understandable. No qualms with it whatsoever. Yeah, I really like the preys draft because I think they also made a couple moves to add like three 20, 24 picks along the way and how they took a bunch of swigs in this draft, but they also have a lot coming next year as well to play with. So certainly encouraging steps from them. I guess you mentioned the abs there. They had Cal and Richie, you followed them at 27th. We had him quite high on our board than Mikhail Gwaiyev at 31st, considering some of the success they've had.

with the defensemen in their system over the past couple of years. That's obviously a natural fit there, if not a necessary need right now, but it's still a ways away for him. But I was kind of surprised that they actually took and kept both of those picks. I thought they might get aggressive. I know they traded an early second for Roskult, and I thought they might leverage another one of these and to help right away. But maybe they just felt like once Richie felt to them at 27, that it was too alluring to pass up and then they took the very mobile skilled defensemen at 31st. I really like what the abs did there. Yeah, so do why. And Ritchie is closer to the NHL than you might think, given the production. He was just in such an awful situation. Miami was injured and then they

don't have much offense or support. He's more of a small area of playmaker type. And Jeremy Hansel was a really nice pickup too. He's your kind of player. Deceptive playmaker activates into the play a ton, gets a ton of stops off the rush. He's a re-entry, but really like that pickup. I think he's going to fit perfectly into what the avalanche do. And based on our write-up on the guide, it seems like Richie's also a type of player who's just going to significantly benefit from just playing with better players, right? Like a lot of the skills he's shown are are ones that tie into, all right, I'm going to make life easier for good players around me. And he didn't have a lot of those last year. But if he ever makes it to the abs, that certainly won't be an issue for him. And as just like a

a play connector who helps helps keep moving things in the right way and making life easier for others. That's a very intriguing skill set to add to that organization. Yeah, he's an amazingly scalable player, right? You put him in any situation. He finds a way to contribute. All right, Mitch. We obviously couldn't get to everyone here just because of time restrictions, but that was, I think, a fun look kind of around the league and some of the most interesting

things that I saw from the two days of the draft. I'll let you quickly plug some stuff here. let's promote all of the lead prospects content and the guide for those that still haven't checked it out because yourself and the rest of our team that are phenomenal and exemplary job throughout the entire process. The work certainly isn't done, right? It's already on to 24 essentially after we finish all these reviews. But I have full faith that the goods are going to keep coming. So let the listeners know a little about that, what you got in the works and where they can check it all out. So check up the draft guide. We had 195 of the 225.

players picked in the draft guide, which is a pretty incredible rate. It was very happy with that. You've got game reports and all of them, grades, tools, more. So that's really good information to have, especially if you're looking to learn a little bit more about these players. You can follow me at Mitchell Brown on Twitter.com. And then in a few months, we're going to have our top 100 prospects and organizational prospect pool rankings, which you're not going to want to miss. And that's an annual favorite of mine, so I can't wait for that to drop. Mitch, thank you for all the great work and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule here during draft week. Thank you also to all the listeners for tagging along for the ride with us and all the continued

support. We're going to be taking next week off while I sneak in a quick little vacation, but don't worry because we're not off for the summer just yet. We'll be back the following week starting on July 10th with more regular schedule of programming. In the meantime, enjoy the start of free agency. And when we're back, we're going to have plenty of fun stuff to catch up on here on the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.