It’s about the time of year when NHL teams have a very good idea of both what they are and where they might finish in the league’s standings. Teams like the San Jose Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks, and Anaheim Ducks look to be battling for the best odds to land 17-year-old star Macklin Celebrini with the first-overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
Sign up for our NHL History Substack newsletter
For the teams quite a bit but not too far above that tier, they will be looking to land a star with their mid-first-round draft choice. Using current NHL players selected with the 12th through the 21st pick, who are some of the more successful prospects taken in that range? How does the future look?
The Best of the Best
While superstar talents like Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Auston Matthews are nearly impossible to come by in the middle of the first round, some star players have slipped their way down to that area. Who are the best of the best?
One of the more recent breakout stars has been New York Islanders defenseman Noah Dobson, who was selected 12th overall in the 2018 NHL Draft. Hints of his star power were shown back in the 2021-22 season, where he registered 51 points, but he has now taken that to a different level. In 47 contests this season, he has six goals and 42 assists for 48 points and a plus-20 rating.
Though the Islanders have one of the best power plays in the league, he is scoring with the best of them when it isn’t in the picture. Among defenders with 200 or more minutes of ice time at 5-on-5, he is ninth in points per 60 and 14th in assists per 60. In all situations, he has the sixth-best points per 60 in the league and the third-best assists per 60 in that group. He is a star and has proven elite talent can be found after the best prospects are already off the board.
In similar tiers are defenders Charlie McAvoy of the Boston Bruins and Erik Karlsson of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Both have elite offensive instincts like Dobson, but neither is quite scoring at his level. Ironically, the player with the best on-ice expected goals against per 60 is Karlsson at 5-on-5 with 2.59 despite being widely seen as a flawed player in his zone. All of them have sacrificed some of their defense for offense in some way this season.
In a lesser but still elite tier, forwards J.T. Miller, Dylan Larkin, Robert Thomas, Mathew Barzal, and Kyle Connor should all be considered. None of them should necessarily be the main player to lead a franchise to a championship, but they are skilled enough to be an elite player on a Stanley Cup team — anyone would be happy to land them.
Getting to some elite goaltenders, Andrei Vasilevskiy has been one of the best in not just recent memory but league history — from 2018-19 through 2022-23, he finished first, second twice, sixth, and 13th in regular season goals saved above expected (GSAx). In the playoffs during that span, he had a godly 54.7 GSAx. As a result, the Tampa Bay Lightning have him to thank for their two Stanley Cups in the 2020s thus far.
The hit rate on mid-first-round picks isn’t quite the same as it is in the top end of the draft, but it is still possible to find either franchise players or ones that come close to that. For those like Vasilevskiy or Karlsson, they were the former for long stretches during their careers.
Other Elite Contributors
Getting to some other star players in the NHL, forwards Joel Eriksson Ek, Joel Farabee, Nick Suzuki, Chris Kreider, and Tomas Hertl can all argue themselves in that category. They are almost all complementary pieces to their top lines, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get the respect that they deserve.
Suzuki, Eriksson Ek, and Hertl are all solid two-way centers who would be immensely valuable to a championship-caliber contender but are on teams with losing records, while Farabee and Kreider are both different in style but can provide both offensive and defensive upside, contributing to each of their team’s successful campaigns in 2023-24.
Not to be forgotten, forwards Cole Caufield, Vladimir Tarasenko, Martin Necas, Matt Boldy, and Alex Tuch are all something special of their own. Each has seen their fair share of playoff success in their careers, young and old, with Boldy being the only one to never see a Conference Final.
Among defenders, Travis Sanheim, Jakob Chychrun, Josh Morrissey, Thomas Chabot, and Ryan Pulock are all pretty special in the current day. All are capable of heavy top-four minutes, making even them massive hits. In the present, there are almost too many good players to list from the middle of the top round.
How the Future Looks
The future of the mid-first-round is looking promising already, with a few players who have either not made the NHL at all or haven’t played much. Starting with one of the anomalies of the 2023 class, 18-year-old Zach Benson is not only playing in the best hockey league in the world against all odds but is excelling. This season hasn’t been a great one for the Buffalo Sabres, but he has been an exception to that — both his ceiling and floor seem to be high, and he could be a true star very soon.
Other prospects from that class that look to be blossoming are forward Oliver Moore and defender Axel Sandin Pellikka. Time will obviously tell with these two, but it’s looking good so far. They both have the potential to be top-line players in the future, which would be exceptional given where they were taken.
Related: Blackhawks’ Oliver Moore Proving He Is More Than Speed
From prior classes that have not debuted in the NHL yet, forwards Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Noah Ostlund, Liam Ohgren, and Frank Nazar all could find themselves in the star category, having some major success as youngsters already. The future looks brighter than ever.
Goaltenders Jesper Wallstedt and Sebastian Cossa were taken with a few picks of each other in the 2021 NHL Draft, and they have a combined one game played in the NHL. They’ll need some more time to develop, but it shouldn’t be long before they will have consistent playing time in the pros. It’s been a bit of a tougher time for Cossa, riding a .905 save percentage (SV%) in the American Hockey League (AHL) this season, but for a young player, he still has loads of potential.
Of the youngsters currently in the league but are seemingly on the verge of taking that next step are defenders Thomas Harley and Kaiden Guhle. They are having the best seasons of their young careers in 2023-24, and that might be a sign that they could be the more notable names on the list.
Overall, the hit rate in the mid-first round is nowhere near that of the early first round, but, like with everything, there are exceptions. For the teams that will be selecting there in a few months, there should still be some solid players to choose from — development is key.
