Bedard or Bust? "Plan B" and Beyond: Blackhawks 2023 Draft Preview

There’s no quick solution for rebuilding the Blackhawks back into one of the NHL’s top teams.

Chicago has 11 picks, including two first-rounders, in the 2023 NHL Draft, but general manager Kyle Davidson and his staff can’t immediately shape their team into contender. That’s even if the Blackhawks net the first overall selection in the draft lottery on May 8 and pluck “generational talent” Connor Bedard in Nashville on June 28.

“This is not something we're going to fix overnight,” Davidson said as the 2022-23 season ended. “It’s not something we're going to fix in Nashville at the draft. It's something that's going to take time. This was Year One.”

Getting Bedard sure would help. Vice President of NHL Central Scouting Dan Marr says the 17-year-old center’s skills and on-ice vision place him in a category with Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby.

Bedard’s drive, smarts and “ability to make a 50-foot pass through three sticks,” allowed the 5-foot-10 forward from North Vancouver, British Columbia to top out with 71 goals and 72 assists in 57 games in his third season with the WHL Regina Pats. On a bigger stage, he dominated with 23 points in seven World Junior Championship games for Canada.

Bedard would be a fitting – maybe even better — replacement for Patrick Kane, who made an immediate impact in Chicago in 2007 after being drafted. Bedard should become a foundation for any NHL team and define a club's style and personality.

But the Blackhawks’ odds of getting the top pick are only 11.5 percent. They will draft in the top five and again later in the first round with a selection acquired from Tampa Bay in a trade last year that sent Brandon Hagel to the Lightning and Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk to Chicago. The Blackhawks also got a 2024 first-rounder from Tampa Bay in the deal.

So who to take?

Davidson insists he won’t name names until he calls them at the draft, but he’s confident the Blackhawks have plenty of “assets,” even if Bedard doesn’t become part of the rebuild.

Davidson seems to agree with general consensus that the prospects rated 1-4 – Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson and Matvei Michkov -- are a notch above the rest in 2023.

“Yeah it’s a special top of the draft,” Davdison said. “There’s no doubt about it. But I think the greatness of this draft class is in its depth as well.

“And so there’s players down the board that we’re really excited about, that we really like. We’ve got the information and the process that we think we can uncover those players. I won’t get into tiers and labels and stuff like that.”

A quick list:

No. 2: Adam Fantilli won the Hobey Baker Award as the top NCAA Division I player as a freshman with the University of Michigan last season. Paul Kariya and Jack Eichel are the two other freshmen to win the Hobey.

Fantilli, from the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area, had 30 goals and 35 assists in 65 games with the Wolverines to lead all U.S. college skaters at 1.81 points per game. The 6-foot-2, 191-pound forward played for the Fox Valley-based USJHL Chicago Steel before Michigan.

No. 3: Leo Carlsson netted 10 goals and 15 assists in 44 games with Örebro of the Swedish Hockey League last season and ranks as the top overseas prospect. The numbers are a little deceptive. Carlsson had the most points of any teenager playing in a league with older men. The 6-foot-2, 185-pounder will fill into NHL profile and already was making plenty of sick moves.

No 4: Matvei Michkov may be the second-most talented player in the draft, but the 5-foot-8, 150-pound forward is locked into a contract with St. Petersburg of the KHL through 2025-26. And anything involving Russia these days might be complicated. Michkov’s 51-year-old father, Andrei, died in “unexplained circumstances” per a tweet on April 4 from the Russian Ice Hockey Federation.

Michkov has been compared with the likes of Nikita Kucherov and is known for “cerebral” game along with a wicked shot and fearless style.

No. 5: Will Smith. A native of Lexington, Mass., Smith is the top-rated American in the draft pool. Still lanky at 6-feet and 175 pounds, the center has committed to skate next season at Boston College where a year of NCAA play should accelerate his development.

Smith’s hockey IQ is rated as high as anyone in the draft, and his skills made him a dynamite middleman between wingers Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault on the Under-18 U.S. National Development Team. Leonard and Perreault are ranked as the No. 5 and No. 10 North American prospects.

No. 6: Matthew Wood. From Nanaimo, British Columbia, the 6-foot-3, 185 pound Wood scored 11 goals and 23 assists as a freshman at UConn last season. Wood and Bedard are friends and Wood was taken by Regina in the WHL’s bantam draft. Wood opted instead to become the youngest player in NCAA Division 1 competition last season.

Compared to Buffalo’s Tage Thompson, Wood is skilled, has a long stride and is projected to become a powerful, strong player as he matures.

Waiting for any top prospect to be available or develop doesn't faze Davidson.

“We're not taking anyone off the board, we're not taking anyone out of consideration just because they might not be available to us in a year or two or whatever,” Davidson said. “That would be a disservice to our endeavor for acquiring the best players.

“There’s lots of work to do, lots of things to learn between now and the draft in Nashville. We'll see where it goes. The thing about the draft process is there's a lot that occurs from here to the draft.”

That includes gathering more information, including talking to players and their agents. The NHL’s scouting combine will take place June 4-10 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Davidson want to find and develop more than just one solid NHL player in 2023 and following drafts.

“The way I’ve kind of positioned it with our staff is that statistically every team should – some teams just don’t have picks – but it’s a about a player a team that comes out of the draft, roughly, for their roster.

“Let’s beat those odds and let’s get more than just what is traditional and we’ve got the capital to do it.”