NHL draft prediction: One long shot worth betting in top 5 ahead of draft night

There has been very little mystery to who will be selected No. 1 overall at the 2023 NHL Entry Draft on Wednesday, June 28 in Nashville, Tenn. Connor Bedard has been pegged to be the top player of the ‘23 Draft Class for nearly half a decade at this point and it’s no use speculating if the Chicago Blackhawks will go with another player.

Bookmakers aren’t even listing odds for Bedard to go first overall. There’s no point.

But things should start to get very interesting after Bedard goes to Chicago.

The Anaheim Ducks hold the second pick and all signs point to them taking Adam Fantilli, a center out of the University of Michigan, with the No. 2 pick. Fantilli is as high as -775 (BetMGM) to go second, but there are some rumblings that Pat Verbeek could wind up going in a different direction. Which brings us to the true wild card of the 2023 NHL Draft: Matvei Michkov.

Long heralded as the second-best player of this cohort after Bedard, Michkov is a dynamic playmaker out of Perm, Russia that is under contract with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL until 2025-26. The 18-year-old has said he will honor that deal, but was noncommittal after that. That means the best-case scenario, should you draft Michkov, is that he’s on your roster for the 2026-27 season.

Michkov’s contract with SKA St. Petersburg and the ongoing war in Ukraine will likely make NHL front offices think carefully about drafting the teenage sensation.

All of this intrigue makes it pretty difficult to predict just how the 2023 NHL Draft will shake out behind Bedard. And that makes for great betting (and the NHL Draft is always a good opportunity for punters anyways since very few people pay attention to -- and bet -- it compared to the NFL and NBA drafts).

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According to the oddsmakers, the most likely scenario is that Fantilli goes second to Anaheim and Leo Carlsson, a high-ceiling center out of Sweden, goes to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Carlsson is -175 to go to third overall. The San Jose Sharks are next up at No. 4 overall and could be a landing spot for Michkov as the Sharks are still in the tear-it-down part of their rebuild. General manager Mike Grier can likely afford to be more patient with Michkov compared to Columbus.

Despite that, Will Smith, another center, is the odds-on favorite to go No. 4 overall according to bet365. Smith, a Massachusetts native committed to Boston College, is -150 to be the fourth pick of the draft.

There is no odds-on favorite for pick No. 5, which belongs to the Montreal Canadiens, though Michkov is the chalk at +125, ahead of David Reinbacher (+225).

But anybody who follows the NHL knows that things rarely go as planned at the draft. Just last year we saw the Habs swerve the consensus by taking Juraj Slafkovsky first overall instead of Shane Wright, who was projected to be the No. 1 pick of the 2022 Draft all season long. That move set off a chain reaction that saw Shane Wright fall to the Seattle Kraken at No. 4 overall. One surprise usually leads to another at drafts and that’s where bettors can make hay.

Here’s how bettors can play into similar chaos at the 2023 NHL Draft.

After Bedard goes first to Chicago, it seems like the decision for Anaheim will be whether to take Fantilli or Michkov. The likeliest outcome is the Ducks select Fantilli, putting the Blue Jackets on the clock. The odds tell us that Carlsson is the most likely pick here, but there are some mock drafters that think that Jarmo Kekalainen and the Jackets are heavily considering Smith in this spot instead of the Swede. Plus, there’s also Michkov. That means there’s a decision between three players, unless Anaheim takes Michkov, which means Fantilli goes to Columbus. In other words, there are plenty of ways that Carlsson does not go third overall, which is what most people (and bookies) are banking on happening.

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If Carlsson does not go to Columbus, that would put a real decision in the hands of the Sharks. It could be between Carlsson and Michkov or Carlsson and Smith, should Michkov go second.

Either way, it’s a coin-flip choice for the Sharks, who seem to be the first realistic option for Michkov. As noted above, San Jose has the luxury of patience with Michkov as his arrival would coincide with its timeline to get back to contention. This would mean there’s a real chance that the Sharks could pass on Carlsson if he’s still hanging around at pick No. 4.

If the Blue Jackets and Sharks do pass on Carlsson, it would make life pretty easy on the Montreal Canadiens, who would likely be happy to select Carlsson with the fifth-overall pick. While the order of the draft is up for debate, the general consensus is that there is a clear top five: Bedard, Fantilli, Michkov, Smith and Carlsson.

Which finally brings us to our bet.

A surprise would need to happen for Carlsson to fall to Montreal, but he is really one of three realistic options for the Habs in this spot unless they go off the board, which would likely only happen if Michkov is the last of the big five remaining.

And despite being one of the three most likely options for Montreal at No. 5, Leo Carlsson is a whopping +4000 to be selected in that spot at bet365. Michkov is +125, Smith is +550 and there are three other players (Reinbacher, Dalibor Dvorsky and Zach Benson) with odds under +1000.

While acknowledging that it’s unlikely that Carlsson slips past both Columbus and San Jose, I don’t think it’s out of the question considering the wild cards we’re dealing with here. Michkov’s presence should lead to chaos and if one team decides to slightly alter their path, it usually leads to more chaos behind them.

The best way to set yourself up to take advantage of that chaos is with a bet on Leo Carlsson to go fifth overall.

The Bet: Leo Carlsson to go No. 5 overall (+4000, bet365)

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