Winners and losers from Round 1 of the 2023 NHL Draft

The 2023 NHL Draft at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville has been dubbed the deepest draft in recent memory. While most players picked on Wednesday night won’t make their NHL debuts for a few years, many teams are banking on their selections becoming franchise-changing players.

Here’s the winners and losers from the first round:

Winners

Chicago Blackhawks

The Blackhawks landed generational talent Connor Bedard with the No. 1 overall selection and grabbed center Oliver Moore, a projected top-10 pick at No. 19. Most teams have difficulty drafting and developing one No. 1 center, and Chicago may have lucked itself into landing two. The Blackhawks also have four picks in the second round on Thursday with plenty of players with first-round grades slipping into their range. The draft board couldn’t have played out any better for them.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Blue Jackets knew they would get a great player with the No. 3 pick, but I don’t think they expected University of Michigan center Adam Fantilli, the consensus second-best player in the draft, to fall into their laps. The Anaheim Ducks threw the first curveball of the draft by taking Leo Carlsson second overall, and Columbus reaped the benefits by landing the 2023 Hobey Baker Award winner and a player who likely would have been taken No. 1 overall in any other draft that didn’t feature Bedard.

Detroit Red Wings

It doesn’t get much better than doing what the Red Wings did on Wednesday — addressing two areas of need and landing two players with All-Star potential. Some draft experts had center Nate Danielson going as high as No. 5 or 6 overall, and Detroit snatched him up with the ninth pick. He joins Dylan Larkin and Michael Rasmussen to form potentially one of the best young center trios in the NHL. Having defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka fall into their laps at No. 17 was another blessing. Perhaps the most offensively gifted blue-liner in the draft, Sandin Pellikka gives Detroit two of the top defensive prospects in the NHL along with Simon Edvinsson.

Losers

Arizona Coyotes

With the No. 6 and 12 overall picks, it feels like the Coyotes should have come away with better players than they did. While defenseman Dmitri Simashev and forward Daniil But are solid players, they both were a bit of a reach. Arizona has one of the top farm systems in the NHL, and this draft was an opportunity to bolster it even more. The Coyotes may look back in a few years and regret passing on a few players like Danielson, Sandin Pellikka, Matvei Michkov and Zach Benson.

Toronto Maple Leafs

The Maple Leafs may have had the reach of all reaches with No. 28 overall pick Easton Cowan, who was the No. 95-ranked prospect by The Athletic’s Corey Pronman and No. 97-ranked prospect by The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler — two of the top prospect gurus in the NHL. If Toronto needed a center badly enough, there were plenty of better prospects with higher upside still available like Riley Heidt, Gavin Brindley David Edstrom and Anton Wahlberg, who all would have made more sense. Sure, Toronto didn’t pick again until Round 5 and if Cowan was the guy they truly wanted, then why not go for him? But if you only have one pick in the first four rounds, you better make it count.

The fans

There were several reports in the hours leading up to the draft of multiple teams trying to trade up in the first round, led by the hometown Predators. National experts were even predicting a high volume of trade activity. The problem, however, was there were zero deals done. Every team kept the picks it started the draft with, and what was hyped as possibly being the most intriguing Round 1 in draft history came and went with a whimper. The atmosphere inside Bridgestone Arena died down after the fifth pick and fans had all but mentally checked after the top 10 picks were made.