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NEW YORK – Connor Bedard tops NHL Central Scouting’s mid-season rankings of North American skaters forward of the 2023 draft.

The 17-year-old centre for the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats has an astounding 31 targets and 70 factors in 29 regular-season video games in 2022-23.

Bedard can also be coming off a memorable efficiency on the current world junior hockey championship, the place he set a variety of nationwide and event data in serving to Canada seize its second straight gold medal.

The North Vancouver, B.C., native was the primary participant granted distinctive standing to play within the WHL a 12 months early at age 15, and leads this season’s scoring race by eight factors regardless of lacking 11 video games whereas away with the lads’s under-20 nationwide workforce.

Adam Fantilli of the NCAA’s Michigan Wolverines — Bedard’s world junior teammate — is the second-ranked North American skater. He’s adopted by fellow forwards William Smith and Ryan Leonard of the USA Nationwide Workforce Growth Program, whereas centre Brayden Yager of the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors rounds out the North American top-5 introduced Friday.

Leo Carlsson, a centre with Orebro in Sweden’s high skilled league, heads the record of European skaters. Sochi winger Matvei Michkov of the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League is No. 2.

“Connor Bedard is an impressive expertise with the flexibility to make the most of all of his abilities and belongings at high velocity, putting him on a degree of his personal proper now because the No. 1 prospect for the 2023 NHL draft,” Dan Marr, vice-president of NHL Central Scouting mentioned in an announcement. “He is without doubt one of the extra pure scorers to come back alongside since Patrick Kane with a draft hype harking back to Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby.

“Like these three, Bedard is a participant that may carry you out of your seat.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 13, 2023.

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