2023 NHL Draft goalie rankings: Which prospects have the best chance of breaking through?

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There are roughly 20 goalies drafted into the NHL every year. Odds are one or two will become legit starters, and a few more will play games in a tandem/backup role. Today I try to stack up the goalie class in the 2023 NHL Draft and break down who has the best chance to help an NHL team in five years.

The top tier

1. Michael Hrabal — Omaha

Hrabal is the standout goalie prospect in this draft. By standout I don’t mean a Spencer Knight/Yaroslav Askarov level of player, but a very good pro prospect for whom you can envision a realistic path to becoming a legit No. 1 goalie, even if that’s not the most likely outcome. Hrabal’s combination of traits plus performance distinguish him; he’s a 6-foot-6 goaltender who moves very well. He was excellent with Czechia’s U18 team this season. His USHL play was more up and down, but the ups were excellent. I’m not going to pretend tagging a guy with a .908 save percentage in league play as a top-tier goalie prospect isn’t a little concerning, but I think he’s shown enough over the year. He reminds me of big, athletic, young goalies like Sebastian Cossa, who was drafted at No. 15, and Mads Sogaard who went 37th. I’m guessing Hrabal ends somewhere in between those two on draft day.

Pro prospects

2. Adam Gajan — Chippewa

3. Scott Ratzlaff — Seattle

4. Trey Augustine — U.S. NTDP

5. Carson Bjarnason — Brandon

6. Jacob Fowler — Youngstown

This tier includes goalies I think will play in the NHL realistically as backups, but that have certain traits that lead you to believe they have a chance to be an NHL starting goalie.

Gajan is a player I debated elevating into the next tier at points during the season. He’s the best athlete among the goalie crop, and his world juniors was extremely impressive, including defeating Team USA and pushing Canada into overtime where they needed a Connor Bedard moment to beat him. His league play was less inspiring. I would have liked to see him dominate the NAHL, especially as a re-entry. His game needs polish and he needs to make better decisions but he has the most potential of the tier-two goalies to elevate and at points throughout the draft process, I had him as the No. 1 netminder.

Ratzlaff is a similar type of goalie with excellent athleticism. He has good sense, but he’s barely 6-foot-1 and only played in 34 games this season for Seattle and none in the playoffs. Augustine and Fowler are built similarly; they are undersized goalies who had very productive seasons, are super intelligent and have enough quickness at their size to give themselves real chances even if they are not premium athletes, with Fowler’s athleticism especially being a question.

If Augustine is the cerebral goalie, and Gajan is the pure athlete, Bjarnason is somewhere in the middle. He’s quick, but not super quick, with good enough sense and size. He doesn’t stand out though in any one area. While I get he’s bigger than Ratzlaff by a couple of inches, I do find it interesting most expect Bjarnason to be the better goalie, but Ratzlaff outplayed him notably in the summer U18 process with Team Canada.

While I think Hrabal is likely to be the first goalie picked on draft day and is the choice for most scouts, some scouts lean to Bjarnason, Gajan or Augustine as their No. 1 goaltender prospect.

Dreaming a bit

7. Max Lundgren — Des Moines

8. Damian Clara — Farjestad

9. Carsen Musser — U.S. NTDP

10. Kristers Steinbergs — Valbo

11. Ruslan Khazheyev — Traktor

12. Alexander Hellnemo — Skelleftea

13. Antoine Keller — Geneve-Servette

14. Yegor Zavragin — Yugry

15. Nathaniel Day — Flint

16. Quentin Miller — Quebec

17. Charlie Robertson — North Bay

This grouping includes players with one or two very intriguing traits but incomplete profiles; they may have a lack of size, quickness or hockey sense, for example.

Clara is a goaltender with a lot of interest in the NHL. I get it: As a 6-foot-6 goalie who moves well for his size and has had some good stretches internationally, he is very intriguing. I think he needs to be far more consistent and make better reads/decisions to be a legit NHL goalie, though. I expect Clara, Khazheyev and Lundgren to all get drafted because of their large frames, and they have enough to their game to be intriguing as pro prospects.

Goalies like Keller, Zavragin and Day don’t have the big bodies of those other goalies, but are all very athletic. They can make the big saves but there are enough questions in their individual games and about whether they can perform versus men.

(Photo of Trey Augustine: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)