Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
Let’s hand out winners and losers from the 2023 NHL Draft.
The Chicago Blackhawks won the NHL Draft. There. Done. It doesn’t matter what happens from here, because the Hawks got a generational talent in Connor Bedard who should be able to change their on-ice culture quickly and turn Chicago back into a winning team on his own.
Yes, he’s that damn good — and if the front office can put more help around him we’ll see something very special.
The issue is that the pick still feels so … icky. There’s no better way to say it. We have a scenario here the best player in years is headed to one of hockey’s largest markets, to play for an Original Six team, with a fanbase that deserves a change in fortune — and yet, it’s still ridiculous this was allowed to happen.
We cannot just celebrate Bedard heading to Chicago without continuing to mention, over, and over again, that the Blackhawks organization orchestrated the largest sexual abuse coverup in professional sports history and walked away with a $2 million fine. We cannot allow the hype of Bedard lighting it up in the NHL distract us from the fact that lives are in tatters, families damaged, and careers ruined because the former Chicago brain trust decided sexual assault wasn’t worth dealing with if the team was winning.
There’s nuance here, and it’s really difficult to weigh it all out. Blackhawks fans deserve a great player. The city deserves Bedard. However, it all feels perfunctory when Rocky Wirtz was able to maintain ownership of the club, despite his disgusting response to questions about the sexual assault of Kyle Beach at a town hall meeting in 2022 designed to allow people to question senior leadership of the organization.
“If somebody in the company asks that question, we’ll answer it, and I think you should get on to the next subject. We’re not going to talk about Kyle Beach. We’re not going to talk about anything that happened. Now we’re moving on. What more do I have to say?”
Wirtz later apologized with a carefully-crafted message from his PR team, but the damage was done. The men directly responsible for the cover-up were gone, but the man at the top had no empathy for what took place. That’s why it felt vile to see Chicago rewarded with the No. 1 pick in the lottery when by any semblance of basic humanity, they should have received unprecedented punishment for allowing a player in their system to be repeatedly abused by a former coach.
It’s just profoundly unfortunate, sad, and infuriating that this should be the Blackhawks ushering in a new era of success with a marquee player — and yet, because of the NHL’s feckless response to the abuse of Kyle Beach the same owner is allowed to stay in charge.
So yes, Chicago won big time — but we can never forget what this organization did.
Winner: The Flyers, who hit the draft’s biggest home run (after Bedard) with Matvei Michkov
Philadelphia is deep in a rebuilding process and had the PERFECT prospect inexplicably land to them at No. 7. Teams at the top of the draft were scared off Michkov due to his KHL contract running through 2026-27, paired with the instability in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. Still, Michkov is legitimately a top-3 player in this class. A kid who recorded 20 points in 27 KHL games this season, despite being 18-years-old. He’s a pure passer, a gifted lamplighter, and it’s wild that teams would be so myopic as to pass on him because of a three year wait.
Enter Philadelphia: Who now have one of the most gifted young players in their prospect system and someone who will be ready to jump to the NHL as soon as the rest of their rebuild is realized. What an amazing pick.
Loser: The inexplicable draft of the Arizona Coyotes
The Coyotes wrote the book on how bad teams stay bad with their picks on Wednesday night. Nobody in the NHL botched their draft capital more than Arizona, who took the No. 6 and No. 12 picks and ended up with two massive reaches.
There’s nothing functionally wrong with either Dmitri Simashev or Daniil But. They’re both legitimate first round talents who could surprise, but based on everything we’ve seen they were not the best talents on the board at either of the Coyotes picks. It’s almost as if the team was absolutely locked into taking a defenseman at No. 6, then got thrown for a loop by the Canadiens taking David Reinbacher — so instead of pivoting their board they freaked out and reached for their next-best D.
We can’t even assume they wanted players who could contribute right now, because neither Simashev nor But can come in right away. Why the hell don’t you take Michkov and land one elite talent? This is a draft that will be studied for years in how not to draft in the NHL.
Winner: Dmitri Simachev who couldn’t believe the Coyotes took him
You should never be excited when the player your drafted was stunned you took him so high.
Loser: What the Canadiens did at No. 5 … then what they did at No. 31
I don’t want to turn this too much into the “who didn’t take Michkov” train, but WHY DIDN’T THE CANADIENS TAKE MICHKOV?! When you’re a team that lacks so much scoring talent that you’re picking in the top-5 you need to do everything you can to find a home run player. One was sitting right there.
David Reinbacher is really good, don’t get me wrong — but he’s not a franchise-defining centerpiece like Michkov could have been.
Then at No. 31, with a lot of really good players on the board, the team overpaid in a trade for Alex Newhook. There’s nothing to really indicate he’ll develop into a Top 6 player, and he was struggling on the Avalanche before this. There is a chance he could blossom, but the 31st AND 37th pick is a really steep price for a guy who didn’t warrant it. Essentially the Canadiens bailed out the Avalanche and let them find pieces for the future.
