The Best Pro Comparisons for 5 2024 NHL Draft Hopefuls
Part of the fun for of us who don't spend years scouting players for the NHL Draft is watching their highlights and games and coming up with ideas of who we think they play like.
It's all good fun for us, but for the amateur scouts around the NHL grading and analyzing how these 17- and 18-year-old players are performing now and trying to project what they'll be in the future, being all haphazard with pro comparisons is something they just absolutely can't stand doing.
After the NHL Scouting Combine concluded on Saturday, we did what we could to try and figure out which current NHL players are the best compared to the players who will be selected at the NHL Draft in Las Vegas on June 28 and 29.
To do this, we've enlisted the help of David Gregory, NHL Central Scouting director to give us his thoughts on who the five of the top prospects of the 2024 NHL Draft best compared to in the league.
We only had to kind of twist David's arm to give us his assessments, but the truth is the players are so good at the top of this year's draft that it's hard not to think of guys we're watching night in and night out around the NHL when watching them play. When they get to the NHL, try not to think of these NHL stars when you do...or totally forget you even read it if it doesn't work out that way.
Macklin Celebrini - Nathan MacKinnon and Sebastian Aho
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Being the (more than likely) No. 1 pick in the draft means the comparisons to previous No. 1 picks create lofty enough comparisons. Imagine being fresh out of college or junior hockey and being mentioned with the likes of Connor Bedard or Connor McDavid without having played a minute of pro hockey. Sheesh! This is what Macklin Celebrini has been dealing with this year and, heck, even in the past couple of years as people around hockey came to figure he would wind up being the top guy in his class even then.
Even with that kind of hype building for years, Celebrini has strived to improve his own perceived weaknesses. Doing that has gotten him to the top of the list in 2024.
"Throughout the years, I've just tried to work on everything and improve everything to the best of my ability," Celebrini said.
For Gregory, a talent like Celebrini made him think of Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon and Carolina's star center Sebastian Aho.
With MacKinnon, it's his intense competitive nature, brilliant skating and speed that make him one of the best in the league. Aho's skill and ability to make his teammates better along with finishing plays himself that has made the Hurricanes a perennial contender. That's what Celebrini will trying to bring to the San Jose Sharks...or whoever drafts him (as if someone else will get a shot).
Artyom Levshunov - Rasmus Dahlin and Mikhail Sergachev
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Whichever team drafts defenseman Artyom Levshunov is going to get, not just a potentially great playmaking blue liner, but a guy who can keep every room he walks into loose, laughing and smiling.
The Belarussian who came up through the USHL and lit it up in his freshman year at Michigan State is big and strong and can move the puck with ease. He can hit hard. He can also score a bunch. All of those factors led Gregory to compare him to Buffalo Sabres star Rasmus Dahlin as well as Tampa Bay Lightning stud defenseman Mikhail Sergachev.
Both of those players can score loads of points and lay hits that leave opponents worse for the wear. Don't let Levshunov's affability fool you, there's a heated competitor to be found on the ice there as well. As for who he likes to watch play defense, the names might not surprise you.
"I like to watch Cale Makar, Erik Karlsson, Rasmus Dahlin, (Charlie) McAvoy... a lot of players, actually, I like to watch," Levshunov said. "I don't just watch defense I watch forwards too."
If a defenseman like him is taking notes on what defensemen and forwards alike are doing, just think of what that could do for his skills all over the ice. Considering he was second on the Spartans in scoring with 35 points as a freshman, it would be stunning if he isn't picked in the top five.
Cayden Lindstrom - Leon Draisaitl and Quinton Byfield
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There's nothing that will get a team's scouts and even their general manager more excited than a big center with skill and Cayden Lindstrom fits that description to a "T." At 6'3" and 210 pounds at 18 years old, he's the type of player who will make the dreams come true for a team between picks 2 and 10 (probably 2 and 5 if we're being real).
He had 46 points in 32 games in the WHL while dealing with a back injury and he said that while he wants to be his own player, Dallas Stars forward Roope Hintz is a player he really likes to emulate on the ice. That's a pretty good guy to want to be like.
David Gregory sees Lindstrom as being out of that mold but in a bit of a different direction and said his most comparable players in the NHL are Leon Draisaitl and Quinton Byfield. With Draisaitl, it's his all-around offensive game and abilities with the puck that stand out and being compared to him is a big deal.
The Byfield comparison is also intriguing. Lindstrom is similar in size to Byfield (6'5" 225 pounds) and ultimately when Lindstrom gets a little older, bigger and stronger he might not be too far off from him. But what Lindstrom likes most about his game is what helps make the Draisaitl and Byfield comparisons realistic.
"I like my speed," Lindstrom said. "I like to use my speed; I love going fast. I love protecting the puck and getting off the wall and just charging the net and the paint, that kind of thing. I think have good hands down low, so yeah, that's a big part of my game."
Size? Speed? And skill? Yeah, that'll do just fine for a team in the lottery.
Zayne Parekh - Cale Makar and Roman Josi
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Saginaw defenseman Zayne Parekh scores points by the truckload (33 goals, 63 assists in 66 games). That's not always something GMs want to hear about a potential Top 10 pick blue liner, but the NHL is different than how it used to be and the way Parekh plays is the exact kind of game we're seeing more often from the top teams in the league.
Even without ever watching Parekh, seeing numbers like that would make anyone think of guys like Erik Karlsson or Quinn Hughes. But Gregory had a couple of other high-scoring defensemen in mind for him: Cale Makar and Roman Josi.
Josi has been a point-producing monster for the Nashville Predators in recent years to go along with his outstanding all-around play. We probably don't have to say too much about Makar and his brilliance with the Colorado Avalanche. But it's Makar's game in particular that Parekh wants to emulate the most.
"He's someone that I have a lot of videos on my phone of and sometimes I watch shifts of his on the bus after games," Parekh said. "Just the way he controls the game from the back, it's pretty admirable, pretty impressive. He's a deception king, honestly. That guy will make guys bite and go the other way. He's really good at what he does and... he's the best at it in the NHL. I just try to pick up little things from his game."
As a right-handed defenseman, Parekh would have a lot of interest to begin with, but with his high-pressure offensive skills and point-scoring, it would be hard to ignore him if that's what a team needs on defense.
Tij Iginla - Matthew Tkachuk and David Pastrnak
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It would probably be really easy to compare Tij Iginla to his father, Hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, and call it a day, right? Thing is, Jarome has been out of the game long enough that things have change since then, but the way Tij plays the game isn't too dissimilar to his dad.
After all, when looking at the way Tij plays with speed and a lack of fear of getting physical, it certainly shows that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But Gregory had a couple of different comparisons for him with Florida Panthers power forward Matthew Tkachuk and Boston Bruins superstar David Pastrnak.
Iginla had 47 goals and 84 total points in 64 games with Kelowna in the WHL and that sort of goal-scoring is hard to ignore at any level.
Even though Iginla is ranked as the ninth-best North American skater by NHL Central Scouting, he's made a steady climb up the rankings all season long which would point to him, perhaps, being a late bloomer of sorts in draft terms. In Central Scouting's preliminary players to watch list in October, he had a "B" grade which indicates being a second or third-round pick.
"I didn't have the best 16-year-old year compared to some of my peers, so I knew in that first September ranking I might not be quite as high as I'd like to be," Iginla said. "But I just tried to take it kind of one month at a time, just to try and use it as fuel and believe that when the next one came out, I'd actually be a little bit higher."
Mission accomplished because he's likely going to be a high first-round pick, and potentially in the Top 10. If he does that, he might slot in behind where Tkachuk was picked (sixth in 2016), but he'd be far ahead of where Pastrnak was selected (25th in 2014).
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