2023 NHL Draft consensus big board: After Connor Bedard, which prospects will be selected?

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No two NHL Draft lists are the same.

It’s true of the teams that will be on the floor next Wednesday night in Nashville, and it’s certainly true of the public rankings that prepare fans for one of the most anticipated days on the hockey calendar.

But when taken all together, accounting for the highs, lows, and outliers, those lists combine to form a consensus — cutting through the noise and, hopefully, giving us the best idea of how the year’s top prospects stack up against one another.

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Today, we take our best shot at finding that consensus, with an aggregate big board of some of the top public rankings available. The group starts, of course, with The Athletic’s prospect analysts Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler, TSN Insider Bob McKenzie — whose rankings are themselves an average of 10 NHL scouts — and this time, we’ve expanded them to also include The Athletic Hockey Show co-host Chris Peters, of Flo Hockey, as well as former NHL GM and TSN’s director of scouting Craig Button.

All five bring different perspectives and experiences to the mix, and the way their rankings align — and differ — can tell us a lot about the class as a whole.

So, let’s dive in, starting at the very top.

The first thing that stands out here is that, when averaging these five rankings, there are no defensemen in the top 10. It would be stunning to see something like that play out on draft day, but this is where the averages left us — and it does point toward a forward class that is considered quite strong.

“There are a lot of good forwards, for sure,” Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman said earlier this week. “Very talented group of forwards this year, and things change — each draft class can be a little bit different — this year, it looks like there’s really a strong group of forwards.”

New post @TheAthleticNHL: Seven round 2023 NHL mock draft https://t.co/qthrfFvLGS

— Corey Pronman (@coreypronman) June 21, 2023

That’s clearest at the top, of course, with Connor Bedard a unanimous number one, and Adam Fantilli getting four of the five nods at No. 2, while finishing no lower than third. Dazzling Russian winger Matvei Michkov got the lone other second-place ranking, but finishing fifth on the McKenzie poll, and going fourth behind Leo Carlsson for both Peters and Button was enough to drop him to fourth on the aggregate.

But the real intrigue starts after number five — where Will Smith clocks in — because that’s where the variance really starts.

Slovak center Dalibor Dvorsky, for example, clocked in at sixth overall despite not finishing that high on any of the five lists — a function of everyone having him in their top nine. Ryan Leonard, meanwhile, got to No. 7 from a different route — finishing at No. 11 or 12 on three of the five lists, but bringing himself up by finishing sixth for Peters and the McKenzie survey.

The top 10 is rounded out by three highly skilled wingers, Matthew Wood — who rose from 15th in the March top 40, finishing top 11 on four of the five lists — Zach Benson (who dropped from sixth in March, to ninth) and Gabe Perreault, who rose from 16th. At 6-foot-3, Wood is much larger than Benson or Perreault, and his near-point-per-game season in the NCAA came against older players than the smaller Benson (who played in the WHL) and Perreault (U.S. NTDP). But ultimately, the three were a cluster within decimals of each other on the final average.

That all being said, even as good as this forward class may be, it was still a surprise not to see a defender in the top 10, mainly because four of the five lists had at least one in that range, with Pronman and Button each having two.

But David Reinbacher — the defender Pronman, Wheeler, McKenzie and Peters all ranked first, and the favorite to be first off the board in Nashville — didn’t clock in on Button’s list until 20, which brought down the average just enough to knock him out of the elite group. He was the very next name, though, and headlines the blue line class for 2023.

The most notable items here are Sandin Pellikka getting a top-five vote from Button, Willander finishing top-10 on the same list, and Simashev checking in 10th for Pronman. That means, despite no defender finishing there on aggregate, four separate defensemen received at least one top-10 ranking out of these five lists.

Since it only takes one team to pick a player that high in the real draft, could this foretell a very different outcome from the consensus ranking on draft day, with two or even three defensemen going in the top dozen? It’s impossible to say right now, but history says the top defensemen don’t tend to wait around long.

What may be even more interesting, however, is what happens after this quarter is off the board. Gulyayev and Bonk were the only other defensemen to crack the aggregate top 30, which again speaks both to the strength of the forwards, and the at-times wide variance in placements on the next tier of ‘D.’

That variance is what makes for draft-day excitement, though, and if these five lists are any indication, this class could be ripe for some bold swings.

This list of outliers displays prospects whose highest ranking was more than 10 spots above any other ranker surveyed.

Many of them, naturally, are down the board, where the variance increases sharply, with Button notably high on a pair of goaltenders, Carson Bjarnason and Trey Augustine. This class hasn’t been thought to have the star power of past years in goal, but that’s two fringe first-round rankings on netminders from the former GM.

The two most intriguing, though, are the ones higher on the board, Russian winger Daniil But and WHL winger Andrew Cristall.

But checks in in at No. 21 on the consensus board, but earned a No. 9 ranking from Pronman — a reflection of his rare athletic tools. There are once again issues with evaluating the Russian prospects, though, due to the difficulties teams have faced getting live viewings of players. At some point, video scouting should still show enough to tell you who the top talents are — but when using a premium pick, it’s understandable why teams — and perhaps public rankers — would be a little more hesitant on a player who, while certainly quite productive, didn’t necessarily post jaw-dropping numbers, either.

Cristall, meanwhile, is essentially the polar opposite, ranking No. 30 on the consensus board after scoring more points per game than any draft eligible not named Bedard in the WHL this season, but whose skating is a real question. Wheeler, though, wasn’t scared off by that trait, putting him at No. 13. His next highest ranking was at No. 24, which speaks to the hesitance on the rest of Cristall’s profile as an undersized winger with skating issues, but certainly Cristall’s remarkable production speaks to a player who does have real offensive gifts.

Ultimately, for both players, teams will have to decide what risks they’re willing to take.

Here’s the complete top 75 consensus ranking:

(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)