BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Most of the talk leading up to this month's NHL draft has been (rightfully) centered around center Connor Bedard.
He's a generational talent, with the potential to reach heights like those of past No. 1 picks Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. He's going to change the trajectory of the Blackhawks organization, after the Blackhawks won last month's draft lottery.
Beyond Bedard, it's an exceptionally strong draft class. Canadian forward Adam Fantilli and Swedish forward Leo Carlsson are projected to be selected with picks No. 2 and 3 in the draft, which is set to be held on June 28 and 29 in Nashville, Tenn. Both players could be in the NHL as soon as next season.
Both Fantilli and Carlsson are potential superstars in the league. With the Ducks holding pick No. 2 in the draft and the Blue Jackets holding pick No. 3, there's a pretty good chance that the Penguins are going to be seeing a lot of either Fantilli or Carlsson in the Metropolitan Division in the near future.
Fantilli and Carlsson are among the 106 draft-eligible prospects attending this week's scouting combine at the KeyBank Center here in Buffalo, N.Y. Both players met with the media on Friday following a series of scouting meetings with different NHL teams.
Fantilli, who will be 19 in October, did it all this year. The 6-foot-2, 195-pound center recently wrapped up his freshman season at the University of Michigan, where he led the entire NCAA in points (65) and tied for the lead in goals (30) in 36 games. He won the NCAA's Tim Taylor Award as the top rookie in college hockey, and the Hobey Baker Award for the top player in all of college hockey.
Fantilli won gold with Canada at the World Junior Championship, recording two goals and three assists in seven games. He represented Canada again at the World Championship, where he played with and against grown men and NHL talent. Canada won gold then too, and Fantilli picked up a goal and two assists in 10 games. His goal was the game-winner over Latvia in the semifinal round, sending Canada to the gold medal game.
"I think it took me a little bit to get comfortable and to feel out the room and the structure and everything," Fantilli said of the World Championship experience. "But once I was able to get comfortable and acclimate a little bit, I started to get more confident I started to play my best hockey in the back half of the tournament there."
Fantilli named the Penguins' P.O Joseph as one of the players on that Canadian World Championship squad that was "extremely helpful" in making him feel comfortable in the tournament.
Fantilli is well-rounded. He's big, mobile and fast, with a high-end skillset offensively with a two-way game to go along with it. His defensive game could still stand to improve more in order to find success at the pro level, but almost all prospects at this stage are in the same boat.
NHL Central Scouting says that Fantilli is "delivering on pre-draft projections."
"An NHL skilled power forward in the making," reads Fantilli's scouting report. "Won a World Junior gold medal and had an outstanding freshman year at the University of Michigan playing a lead role on the team. Continues to show that he likes to win. Plays a team first game. Competes with his physical attributes and elite level skills and smarts to achieve team success which will translate to a high pick in this year’s Draft and an all-star NHL career. It’s not an exaggeration to state that the best is yet to come.”
Fantilli points to Nathan MacKinnon and Matthew Tkachuk as players he tries to watch and emulate a lot.
Asked what sets him apart from other prospects in this draft, Fantilli pointed to his roles on the World Junior and World Championship teams. He wasn't a top-line guy in either tournament, but he still made a positive impact either way.
"I thought I was able to show that and World Juniors and at the World Championships, I don't have to be in that top role necessarily to be able to have an impact on the game," he said. "My physicality and compete is something that I pride myself on and something that I'm able to use up and down the lineup and be a depth guy if if that's needed."
Fantilli said he met with 11 teams for interviews as part of the combine. Obviously, most of those teams won't have a chance to draft Fantilli later this month. But there's still value for both sides in going through those meetings.
"I don't think it's always for right now, to be honest with you," Fantilli said of those meetings. "Sometimes trades could happen down the line, picks could switch, you never know. I think they might be doing due diligence for further down the line in my career. So just getting in those rooms, feeling it out, getting to know them and them getting to know me, it was a really good experience. And I'm really glad I was able to have that many, actually."
Carlsson is right up there with Fantilli in the conversation for the top two selections.
This past season was Carlsson's second year in the SHL, the top league in Sweden. He's been regularly playing against grown men since he was 16 -- always a plus when drafting players out of Europe. Carlsson finished this season with 10 goals and 15 assists in 44 games for Orebro HK, and one goal and eight assists in 13 postseason games.
Carlsson, like Fantilli, represented his country at both the World Junior Championship and World Championship this year. Sweden didn't medal in either tournament, but Carlsson was a standout himself. He finished No. 3 for Sweden in scoring in the World Junior Championship with three goals and three assists in seven games. His three goals in eight games in the World Championship tied for the team lead on Sweden, and his five points ranked sixth.
"It's been good," Carlsson said of his season. "Some ups and downs as well. But a pretty good World Juniors tournament, a great playoffs and a good World Championship."
Carlsson has size at 6 foot 3 and 194 pounds. He's a strong, powerful skater, with good playmaking abilities and a strong defensive game. He's not overly physical -- not many players coming out of the SHL are -- but that's a tool that can be added once he makes the jump to North America. Carlsson is currently signed in Orebro through the 2024-25 season, but it's possible for the team that selects him to help get him out of that contract and bring him to North America if that is the goal.
NHL Central Scouting calls Carlsson a "natural first-round pick."
"A competitive, well-built, strong two-way forward with all the tools needed to be a star," reads the scouting report on Carlsson. "Stays on the puck well along the boards and is hard to knock down in battles. Excellent poise. His puck-handling and skating work excellently in unison. Can shoot a variety of ways and releases it well. Can play on or off the puck effectively and create offense in a variety of ways, but also understands his role at all times defensively. Makes the game look easy, rotating in and out of space with and without the puck to make plays and get open. He is constantly reading and identifying his options, whether that’s space opening up for him to put a puck into for a moving teammate, a layer he can use asa screen for his shot or a lane he can take on an entry. The way he can bait defenders one-on-one is extraordinary. He is a natural rally starter who can change the momentum of a shift, period, or game either on or off the puck.
Carlsson grew up a fan of Sidney Crosby and the Penguins, but says he models his game more after Auston Matthews and Anze Kopitar.
Carlsson said that he met with 11 teams as well. Like with Fantilli, most of those teams won't have the opportunity to draft Carlsson. But it's still a beneficial experience for both sides, including some of those teams looking to get some more insight on other Swedish draft-eligible prospects.
"No hard questions actually, it's been really easy for me," Carlsson said of the experience.
There's a bit of a wild card in the mix as well in Russian winger Matvei Michkov. In the years leading up to this draft, Michkov's name was mentioned alongside Bedard's as a potential future superstar. But global politics and the general unease over Russian prospects have hurt Michkov's stock. The International Ice Hockey Federation banned Russia from international tournaments following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, so Michkov hasn't had the big stages of some of his peers in the World Championship and World Junior Championship.
If a team is looking for help in the near future, Michkov might not be that guy. In 2021 he signed a five-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL that will keep him in Russia through the 2025-26 season. It's not impossible to get Russian players out of their existing contracts -- the Capitals' 2022 first-round pick Ivan Miroshnichenko and his KHL club Avangard Omsk mutually agreed to terminate his contract last month. That situation was a bit different, though. Miroshnichenko only had one year left on his contract, and there was an existing clause in his contract that allowed him to leave in the final year to move to North America if he desired. It seems unlikely that SKA -- one of the KHL's premier clubs -- would let its superstar winger leave in the same way, especially given the term left on the deal.
After the Blackhawks, Ducks and Blue Jackets, the next five teams in the draft order are the Sharks, Canadiens, Coyotes, Flyers and Capitals. It seems unlikely that Michkov's contract status and the situation in Russia will cause his stock to fall too far, but there's still a slim chance he falls to a Metropolitan Division rival as well.
Michkov isn't at the draft combine, but he is expected to be physically present for the draft later this month.
Regardless of how the order plays out, this draft class is shaping up to be the best the NHL has seen in quite awhile. It'll be several years before we can know the true impact of this class, though.
"I think this is a really deep draft class in the first round," NHL Central Scouting director Dan Marr said Friday. "You know, the top 50, all are going to be pretty good players down the road. We do our best, the NHL scouts do their best to get the order correct. But we won't know for another two or three years."
