The Elite Prospects scouting team meets for the third time in the 2022-23 season to rank the Top-64 prospects for the #2023NHLDraft!
Read the full ranking here: https://eprinkside.com/2023/03/23/the-elite-prospects-pre-u18-ranking-of-the-top-80-prospects-in-the-2023-nhl-draft
EP Scouts:
JD Burke – Editor-in-Chief (@JDylanBurke on Twitter)
Mitch Brown – Dir. of North American Scouting (@MitchLBrown)
Lassi Alanen – Dir. of European Scouting (@lassialanen)
Cam Robinson – Dir. of Film Scouting (@Hockey_Robinson)
David St-Louis – Lead Scout (@DavidSt_Louis)
Daniel Gee – Crossover & USHS Scout (@DanielGScouting)
Lauren Kelly – Ontario Regional Scout (@laurkelly24)
Dylan Griffing – Russia Regional Scout (@GriffingDylan)
Russ Cohen – Crossover & USA Scout (@sportsology)
Jimmy Hamrin – Swedish Regional Scout (@jimmyhamrin)
Marek Novotny – Czechia & Slovakia Regional Scout (@mareknovotny96)
Joey Padmanabhan – USA Regional Scout (@joeypad2)
Time Stamps:
00:45 Connor Bedard
2:55 Adam Fantilli
4:20 Leo Carlsson
6:08 Matvei Michkov
8:53 Michkov vs Fantilli
11:00 Zach Benson
14:20 Andrew Cristall
16:58 Oliver Moore vs Andrew Cristall
17:20 Oliver Moore
19:45 Will Smith
20:31 Andrew Cristall
23:00 Andrew Cristall vs Will Smith
24:48 Will Smith
26:20 Ryan Leonard
27:43 Will Smith
28:24 Dmitri Simashev
30:20 Dmitri Simashev vs David Reinbacher
33:29 David Reinbacher
36:00 Axel Sandin Pellikka
39:28 Quentin Musty
41:30 Gracyn Sawchyn
44:32 Gavin Brindley
48:25 Discussing ranking philosophy
49:05 Colby Barlow and Brayden Yager
50:05 Matthew Wood
51:55 Jayden Perron
53:53 Dalibor Dvorsky
58:10 Colby Barlow
59:27 Samuel Honzek
1:02:09 Jayden Perron
1:03:05 Spot the cat
1:03:42 Matthew Wood
1:04:54 William Whitelaw
1:07:20 Brayden Yager
1:10:00 Riley Heidt
1:12:30 Nate Danielson
1:13:34 Danielson vs Calum Ritchie
1:14:03 Oscar Fisker Mølgaard
1:17:54 Eduard Šalé
1:21:13 Calum Ritchie
1:22:40 Caden Price
1:23:30 Ethan Gauthier
1:25:02 Charlie Stramel
1:26:20 Gabe Perreault
1:29:05 Timur Mukhanov
1:30:47 Charlie Stramel
1:32:27 Beau Akey
1:33:34 Joey Willis
1:34:20 Beau Akey
1:35:50 Tom Willander
1:39:53 Bradly Nadeau
1:41:35 Luca Cagnoni
1:42:10 Lukas Dragicevic
1:44:21 Cagnoni vs Dragicevic
1:45:55 Tanner Molendyk
1:46:37 Matthew Mania
1:47:40 Mania vs Molendyk
1:48:10 Aram Minnetian
1:50:36 Comparing NA defencemen
1:53:46 Cam Allen
1:54:31 Hunter Brzustewicz
1:55:15 Noah Dower Nilsson
1:56:55 Otto Stenberg
1:58:05 Koehn Ziemmer
2:00:18 Daniil But
2:01:33 Joseph Willis
2:02:08 Bradly Nadeau
2:02:45 Nick Lardis
2:04:30 Kalan Lind
2:05:31 Coulson Pitre
2:06:05 Andrew Strathmann
2:07:47 Lucas Pinelli
2:08:15 Carson Rehkopf
2:09:04 Felix Nilsson
2:10:11 Aydar Suniev
2:11:05 Alex Čiernik
2:12:47 Theo Lindstein
2:13:40 Oliver Bonk
2:14:10 Kasper Halttunen vs Lenni Hämeenaho
2:15:05 Easton Cowan
2:16:05 Denver Barkey
2:16:32 Beckett Hendrickson
2:17:00 Oliver Bonk
2:17:47 Connor Levis
2:18:23 Kasper Halttunen
2:18:42 David Edstrom
2:20:54 Jordan Tourigny
2:21:45 Hoyt Stanley
2:22:40 Carter Sotheran
2:23:28 Étienne Morin
2:23:00 Carter Sotheran
2:25:14 Anton Wahlberg
2:26:34 Luke Coughlin
2:27:17 Jake Fisher & Gavyn Thoreson
2:28:27 Aiden Fink
20 Comments
Joey's webcam situation is giving me Command and Conquer 3 vibes. Thanks for the upload everybody!
1:46:05 It’s pronounced Mole-en-dyke and I think that kid is going to be a major steal in a few years.
We added goalies and moved a couple of players up after the meeting, so the rankings won't all be correct when you hear them. You can check out our final board at the link in the description!
So my question is about Oliver Moore…very intriguing as a prospect, and seems to be rising quite fast. However, his production is actually pretty pedestrian, and significantly behind many other guys in the same league, all of whom are ranked below him. What gives?
This draft class was billed as being as good as the 2015.m class. I don't think so at all. There's no depth and hardly and great defensive prospects. After the big 4, it's a crapshoot.
I'm sad about Danielson still being so low. It seems like Daniel and Mitch actually quite like him and Mitch made a comment that he should be 10 spots higher last time so I thought he might move up. To the assertion he's not great at anything, how about carrying the puck through NZ and into the offensive zone? He is an incredible puck carrier I think once he builds up speed and a good playmaker to go along with that. I also really like the way he finishes his routes attacking the net with speed after creating an entry, he could have a lot more points with good linemates. On top of that he has physical skills to play a cycle game and above-average defensive ability. Just such a good all around center I think.
Id draft David St-Louis with the 1OA cause he the goat 🐐
Love the sawchyn and Molgaard respect, and definitely agree that Smith is the 3rd best on the NTDP
Moore over Smith is crazy imo. I get that Moore may have better NHL tools but the chasm in production between the two is far too great to ignore – especially when many (most?) scouts see Smith > Moore. Historically speaking, high point producing players have consistently over performed their draft position while low producing players have consistently underperformed given their draft positions. I'd even go as far as to say choosing Moore over Perreault would be bad process but at least with those two there is a strong consensus among scouts that Moore is the better prospect.
I love these videos, thank you so much for doing this. Getting pumped for the draft!
Do you think there is a chance that Quentin Musty or Samuel Honzek goes top 10?
Thank so much for these roundtables. As someone who is also an NBA Draft enthusiast I am sad NBA ppl don't have a similar setup somewhere
Who would be a huge riser and d’aller in this draft relative to their draft range?
David connais son affaire en criss
I haven't watched entire games of them, however, based on some of the shift-by-shift compilations I have seen, Moore looked more impactful/dangerous to me just based on my anecdotal eye-test. Smith actually reminded me a bit of Mike Ribeiro. Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily.
Fantilli = Couturier/Schenn
Carlsson = Backlund/Eriksson Ek
Will Smith will go #5
I like these pre-draft discussions more than most final rankings. You talk about the good AND the bad. I find most mainstream final rankings just try to sell the good.
great video guys, love the content. Can’t wait for the final draft rankings!
As usual I'm mostly just nodding in agreement with David. I think there's an over-correction happening on the valuation of smaller players (although probably not in actual NHL scouting departments). If the smaller player isn't superlative, the ceiling is probably a nic petan or, at best, a connor garland – who maybe wouldnt be top 6 on a good NHL team (and thereby probably wouldnt be on the team at all). If the smaller player is a defenseman they have to have incredible awareness and bravery as well.