Connor Bedard, long considered the prize in the 2023 NHL draft, will find out Monday which team gets first chance at him in the lottery.
Should the Ducks win the lottery, then North Vancouver-born Bedard can stay on the west coast and join a rising club that already features his 2022 Canadian world junior teammate Mason MacTavish and the creative Trevor Zegras, their leading scorer this season. MacTavish and Zegras are centres, which would allow the 5-foot-10 Bedard to find his own comfort zone at the pro level rather than have to carry the load himself.
While not a big man, Bedard’s on-ice motor and his driven personality have drawn comparisons to the lead-by-example style of Sidney Crosby, who came to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a different type of lottery, and immediately put that team on a Stanley Cup course.
But the lottery can be finicky. Just ask the Buffalo Sabres, who had 20% odds on McDavid in 2015, only to have the Oilers land him at 11.5%. So, Columbus is crossing its fingers, while Chicago, at the end of the Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews era, hopes it can speed up its rebuild with the right mix of numbers from 14 balls. Each team is assigned a series of four-figure combinations.
Only the first 11 teams in reverse order of standings are eligible to move into the No. 1 position. The rest of the non-playoff teams can’t move up more than 10 spots — the reason why Anaheim’s probability of drafting first increases from 18.5% to“There was zero debate,” Central Scouting vice-president Dan Marr told NHL.com when the final rankings came out with Bedard first. “Going into the season, he was slotted at No. 1 and there hasn’t been any conversation, comments, discussion otherwise.
But getting tagged second is hardly a curse in this deep draft. Nobleton, Ont.-born Adam Fantilli of the University of Michigan, is a 6-foot-2 centre getting lots of hype to be chosen after Bedard with Russian winger Matvei Michkov and Swedish forward Leo Carlsson not far behind.
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