A look at Detroit's selections for next week's draft and three burning questions

A week from this coming Wednesday, the 2023 NHL Entry Draft will begin from Nashville's Bridgestone Arena.  Round 1 will take place Wednesday the 28th, and Rounds 2-7 the following day.

As it stands, the Red Wings hold six of their allotted seven picks, with four more tacked on via trades:

Round 1: Pick 9, Pick 17 (acquired from the Islanders via Vancouver for Filip Hronek at the 2023 trade deadline)

Round 2: Pick 41, Pick 42 (acquired from St. Louis in the trade that brought Jake Walman and Oskar Sundqvist to Detroit for Luke Witkowski and Nick Leddy in March 2022), Pick 43 (also acquired in the Hronek trade)

Round 3: Pick 73

Round 4: Pick 117 (acquired from Minnesota in exchange for Sundqvist at this year's deadline) (Detroit sent its fourth, number 105, to Vancouver as part of the Hronek trade)

Round 5: Pick 137

Round 6: Pick 169

Round 7: Pick 201

Will Detroit defy NHL orthodoxy and try to climb higher into the top ten via trade?

In recent years, the Red Wings biggest rival has been the NHL's draft lottery.  Thanks to the lottery, Detroit dropped at least one spot every year between 2017 and 2023 relative to where it would have picked if the NHL just drafted in worst-to-first order.  This year, it would have required catching a major break to leap into the top three (the Wings had just a 5% of moving all the way up the top pick), so it can come as no real surprise that they didn't, but it does raise questions.

With two choices in the middle of the first round (and numerous supplemental assets behind those top two), Detroit is a conceivable candidate to push further up into the top picks of the draft.  Here, it's worth noting that trading up at the head of the NHL Draft is rare.  

As The Athletic's Max Bultman noted, no team has traded into the top ten since the Maple Leafs swapped picks seven, thirty-seven, and sixty-eight to take Luke Schenn with the fifth pick in the 2008 Draft.  While teams have included top ten picks in deals to bring in active players, we haven't seen one move up in a pick-for-pick move (what Bultman calls a "a true trade-up, with first-round picks headed both ways, inside the top ten") in the fourteen subsequent drafts.

Realistically, this isn't going to happen to acquire the number one pick, and by extension Connor Bedard, from Chicago.  The Blackhawks spent the season losing on purpose to improve their chances at the Regina Pats product; they aren't going to move on from him now that they've literally won the lottery to secure his services.

Instead, Detroit might consider a move for one of Adam Fantilli out of the University of Michigan or Matvei Michkov (currently under contract with SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL)—both number one overall-level talents cursed to share a draft year with the prodigious Bedard.

Fantilli, the presumptive number two pick, would require working out a deal with Anaheim, current holders of the the second slot in the first round.  He is a 200-foot power forward whose greatest gift is an insatiable desire to drive play toward the net and whose diverse skillset bears a resemblance to that of a young Evgeni Malkin.  With young centers Mason McTavish and Trevor Zegras already in place, perhaps the Ducks would see more value in trading the pick with which he will (more than likely) be selected than in the player himself.

Michkov, meanwhile, has a credible case for being the most complicated draft evaluation the NHL has ever seen.  On the ice, his puck-handling, hockey sense, and edge work border on transcendence, but there are legitimate questions as to how translatable those skills will be for an undersized winger without elite foot speed.  Meanwhile, Michkov is under contract in the KHL through the 2025-26 season with SKA, presenting an obvious problem for whichever team selects him and will presumably want him in North America much sooner.  The general political instability brought about by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only confused his eventual transfer to the NHL further.  

Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported on his podcast that some teams have been miffed by the challenge of scheduling pre-draft meetings with Michkov, who did not attend the Scouting Combine in Buffalo earlier this month.  This report fueled speculation that Michkov may try to leverage non-compliance in scheduling interviews into choosing his NHL destination.

There was a time when Michkov was nailed on to go second behind Bedard, if not challenge him for the top spot, but not it seems more likely he will be picked somewhere in the middle of the top ten.  Washington, slotted one place before the Wings at eight, looks to be the latest Michkov could fall.  

Fantilli is a much surer evaluation (on the ice and off it), but Michkov could be had for a lesser price.  Both are worthy options of consideration for Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings.

What will the Wings do with their three straight second rounders?

In the Draft's second round, Detroit will have an interesting, though not unprecedented, circumstance on its hands: picking thrice in a row at forty-one, forty-two, and forty-three.

At the 2015 Draft, the Boston Bruins infamously used picks thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen to take Jakub Zboril, Jake DeBrusk, and Zachary Shenyshyn.  The next three picks all became All-Stars: Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor, and Thomas Chabot.  Detroit will hope to avoid a similarly ignominious fate with its three consecutive selections.

Of course, that also presumes that the Red Wings will use all three picks, which is perhaps premature.  In a class whose depth has been a subject of awed conversation from draftniks for years, each of those three picks is a serious asset.  Whether it's to trade up or for an active player, Detroit's triad of 2023 second rounders (perhaps packaged together) could be extremely useful.  If nothing else, that they are consecutive affords the Wings a unique degree of flexibility.

I would guess (and here it's worth stressing that this is nothing more than uninformed speculation) that the Red Wings are much more likely to deal at least one of their five first and second rounders than they are to use all five themselves.

How will Detroit use its assets to make improve the '23-24 Wings, and at what cost?

As I discussed last week, the Red Wings are entering a decisive moment in their rebuild, where losing is no longer presumed part of the process and there is a need to add NHL ready talent.  The Draft is of course a platform for doing just that, but that won't happen with the Wings' current assortment of picks.

Arguably not even Bedard is ready to contribute to winning games at the NHL level in the upcoming season.  It's possible that Fantilli goes back to Michigan for another season of college hockey.  It's perhaps even probable Michkov remains in Russia for at least one more year.  All three of them will likely be taken before Detroit's first scheduled pick.

That leaves Steve Yzerman and company with essentially two options.

First, there is trading up, as discussed above, but that's no guarantee.  First you need to hit on your prospect evaluation, then you need to move up and select the player, then you need to make sure that player wants to and is ready to play at the NHL level as an eighteen-to-nineteen-year-old.  In short, it's a lot to ask for, at least as far as immediate contribution is concerned.

The second (and likely more fruitful option) would be trading assets for a roster player at the Draft.  Every year, the physical coming-together of the league's general managers naturally invites roster movement.  Each team has at least some degree of flexibility with regard to the coming year's roster, and every team has holes it's looking to fill.

I ran through some trade targets up front, as well as in goal and on the blue line, last week, but suffice it to say, the Red Wings brain trust will be looking to find a dance partner for a trade that could help improve next year's roster in a way it's unlikely any drafted prospect could.