THN Mock Draft: #17 to Detroit, Quentin Musty

If the 2023 NHL Draft follows The Hockey News' prospect rankings, the Detroit Red Wings will select Quentin Musty.  The Hamburg, New York-born winger posted 26 goals and 52 assists in 53 games for the OHL's Sudbury Wolves in his draft year.

Thanks to elite hands and excellent size (6-foot-2, 190 pounds), Musty has a lofty ceiling, projecting as the kind of skilled power forward that NHL GMs tend to salivate over.

The Hockey News' Tony Ferrari described Musty as "A playmaking power forward with an underused but excellent shot, Musty found himself just one point back of Colby Barlow for the scoring lead among OHL draft-eligible players despite playing in six fewer games. Musty improved with each passing week throughout the season. He blended power and skill, making plays with defenders on his back, finding passing lanes with ease at times.” 

An anonymous scout noted to THN the way Musty has evolved into a more well-rounded player.  Where once he depended purely on his shot, Musty has since blossomed into a genuine dual-threat player in Sudbury.  That degree of versatility will serve him well at the next level.

THN's Ryan Kennedy offers Pavel Buchnevich as a comparable for Musty: Not one of the league's best wingers, but a player whose combination of size and skill makes him highly effective.

As a second anonymous scout observed, the knock on Musty is a lack of consistency.  That scout said "When he's on, he can be the best draft-eligible player in the OHL...Maybe it's because he's on a weaker team, but it's all about the consistency in his play."

The Red Wings took a swing on a prospect with similar concerns in recent memory.  Joe Veleno carried a similar reputation heading into the 2018 Draft, and Detroit still saw it fit to select him with that year's 30th pick.  However, that decision came under the previous regime, prior to Steve Yzerman's return to the organization.

Thanks to his handling and puck-carrying ability, Musty can handle more than the typical winger's share of responsibility in build-up play.  Without doubt, he has the kind of tantalizing skill that makes overlooking some issues with consistency seem an understandable price to pay somewhere in the middle of the first round.

It's worth noting that Detroit may not be interested in using the 17th pick at all, at least not to select a player.  

At his pre-draft press conference, Yzerman said "I don't anticipate moving the ninth pick. In all likelihood as we stand here today, I expect to use the seventeenth pick on the first night of the draft as well."

That's hardly an iron-clad guarantee of anything, but, if we take it at face value, it sounds as though Yzerman does not intend to trade his ninth pick but can at least conceive of a world where he moves the 17th.  Yzerman is notorious for his ability to say nothing in many words to the media, but it doesn't feel ridiculous to read into the fact that he all-but-denied-outright the idea of trading pick nine while his assurances around pick 17 are (slightly) more reserved.

Of course, in the same availability, Yzerman stated that because of the way business ramps up once the GMs are gathered together for the draft, trading up or down is a move that is unlikely to transpire until he's on the draft floor.  With that in mind, perhaps "not anticipating" moving either pick isn't much of an assurance at all.