Blackhawks’ 2023 NHL draft outlook: Leo Carlsson emerging as fourth elite option

Critics of the Blackhawks’ drastic tanking plan have pointed out that finishing last in the NHL comes with only a 25.5% chance of receiving the No. 1 overall pick.

The counterargument is that finishing last nonetheless guarantees a top-three overall pick. The last-place team has an 18.8% chance of receiving the No. 2 pick and a 55.7% chance of dropping to third, but it can drop no further.

And entering the season, with the 2023 NHL draft containing three elite prospects — forwards Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli and Matvei Michkov — all boasting the talent to have been top picks in less-stacked years, a guaranteed top-three pick looked quite enticing.

It still does now. But the emergence of forward Leo Carlsson as the 2023 draft’s fourth elite prospect actually makes the tanking plan look even more foolproof. Now, even finishing second-to-last — which guarantees a top-four pick — should lead to significant long-term gain.

And considering the Ducks (with 22 points in 35 games, equaling a .314 points percentage) and Blue Jackets (22 points in 32 games, .333 points percentage) have so far looked almost as pathetic as the Hawks (20 points in 32 games, .313 points percentage) in the race for last, that shift is reassuring.

Those three teams — and realistically, all 32 NHL franchises — will be paying close attention to the 2023 World Junior Championships over the next two weeks.

The tournament, which began Monday and runs through Jan. 5 in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, features Bedard, Fantilli and Carlsson. It’s the most prominent, contained setting within which to compare them to each other before the NHL combine in May.

Bedard has long been the consensus No. 1 prospect and might be the most acclaimed draft prospect of any kind since Auston Matthews in 2016. His shot is particularly otherworldly but every one of his offensive skills tops the charts.

He has 64 points in 28 games for an otherwise mediocre Regina Pats team, leading all Canadian juniors as a 17-year-old, and tallied eight points in seven games for Canada last summer during the rescheduled 2022 WJCs.

Fantilli, however, has been so good in his own right that he has an outside shot to challenge Bedard for first overall and will almost certainly land in the top two.

He’s four inches taller than Bedard and plays a sturdier game, but also offers the elite offensive explosiveness — if not quite Bedard-level slickness — to be a first-line NHL center. He has 26 points in 16 games at the University of Michigan, ranking third in the NCAA as a freshman.

Michkov is the group’s wildcard. He’s absent from the WJCs because Russia is banned, and that’s not the only complication created by his nationality.

His stat line — 14 points in 12 games — appears rather unremarkable because he’s playing for SKA St. Petersburg’s minor-league affiliate against pro competition. He’s also signed with SKA through 2026 and may not come to North America until then. Based on talent alone, Michkov is absolutely comparable to Bedard and Fantilli, but there are extraneous concerns.

That’s why Carlsson’s sudden breakthrough is so beneficial to the Hawks.

Carlsson has burst onto the scene by producing at a top-six level in Sweden’s top pro league — he has 14 points in 25 games for Orebro — despite just turning 18 on Monday.

He’ll be on full display as one of Sweden’s best players at the WJCs; he tallied two points Monday in their tournament-opening rout of Austria. And his 6-3, 200-pound frame, relentlessness and intelligence make projecting his NHL upside a straightforward exercise.

There’s much less agreement on rankings beyond the top four, but if the remainder of the Hawks’ season goes as planned, they shouldn’t need to worry much about that. It seems hard to go wrong between Bedard, Fantilli, Michkov and Carlsson.