The prospects for good, exciting hockey in Columbus, Ohio look bright for the near future.
Meaning the overall excitement level due to the number of top-end prospects the Columbus Blue Jackets have collected in recent years.
Adam Fantilli, David Jiricek, Denton Mateychuk, Jordan Dumais, and the list goes on.
Earlier this week, The Athletic's Scott Wheeler ranked the top 50 drafted NHL prospects for 2023. The four Blue Jackets names mentioned above all cracked his top 50, with two of those names—Fantilli (third) and Jiricek (ninth)—cracking the top 10.
Gavin Brindley, Corson Ceulemans, and Stanislav Svozil were all honorable mentions. Columbus had the second most names in the top 50 behind the Chicago Blackhawks.
Wheeler ranked Fantilli third behind Blackhawks first overall pick Connor Bedard and Matvei Michkov, whom the Philadelphia Flyers drafted with the seventh overall pick despite his commitment to the KHL through 2025-26.
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Regardless of the order ranking, Fantilli is the guy Columbus needs.
Fantilli is a big, strong, powerful center who takes pucks from the wall to the interior with force, ease, touch and speed — the kind of player every team covets. He can beat you along the wall on the cycle. He can beat you carrying the puck in rotations around the perimeter of the offensive zone. He can beat you by pushing through lanes to the middle third, driving the net, or dropping a shoulder to take space that isn’t there. He can beat you flying out wide. He has regularly blown me away in viewings these last couple of years (at Hockey Canada’s showcase two summers ago, in games where he looked like a man among boys in the USHL, and again at various points throughout his historic, Hobey Baker-winning freshman year at Michigan).
And even at 6-foot-2 and about 195 pounds, he’s a top-end skater. It’s not often we see players his size who can move like him. His skating is balanced. It’s powerful when it needs to be and light and adjustable when it needs to be. Within his movement patterns, he can handle the puck on a string and shade opposing defenders off his hip. He’s going to be a transition monster. On top of it all, he’s physical, he’s a fiery competitor, he’s strong in the faceoff circle, he’ll get after it on forecheck and track pucks, he plays with energy, and he’ll pounce on turnovers and be opportunistic. He can score from midrange consistently with his low-kick wrister and one-timer, he’s got an ability to protect the puck in and out of coverage, he’s got a dangerous curl-and-drag wrister, and he’s comfortable in traffic. When he’s on, he can completely take over a game.
He has also shed some of the force-it plays that could frustrate me and others at lower levels (he made better decisions on shot selection, overhandled less, and utilized his linemates better last year). I think he’s going to be successful on raw ability from the jump in the NHL. Once he refines and rounds out his game some more and adds more muscle as he ages, watch out.
Suffice it to say the Blue Jackets have not had a prospect of Fantilli's caliber and while they got him at No. 3, he's a first-round pick most years. The reigning Hobey Baker Winner scored 65 points—co-led the country with 30 goals—last season for the University of Michigan Wolverines and he could find himself as a Calder Memorial Award nominee next summer.
We can speculate all summer about who will play where and with whom, but as Aaron Portzline outlined today in The Athletic, so much is in the air.
And probably more than usual since there's a brand new head coach in Mike Babcock.
With many personnel additions, strategies, and tactics to dive into and try out, where a guy like Fantilli fits on the team, presumably for opening night, is going to be fun to watch, including the process to that point.
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Jiricek already got his feet wet at the NHL level, making his league debut last season after being drafted sixth overall only a few months prior. He was mainly up for a few games due to the Blue Jackets’ severe injury woes, but there's a strong possibility he will play a major part in the Blue Jackets' revamped defense next season.
Whether that’s making the team out of camp or at least being on the NHL roster at some point over the 2023-24 season for Columbus.
Jiricek has some extremely desirable attributes, marked by a booming point shot (it’s explosive, and he does a really good job keeping it on target and a couple of feet off the ice), a strong, athletic 6-foot-3 frame, and a commanding on-ice presence. He’s a staunch man-to-man in-zone defender, he moves his feet well for his size (though I do worry about his stilted backward skating/pivots and how often he gets caught flatfooted), and thrives in transition with his ability to both close out on gaps (less so than maintain them) with his length and aggression and lead a ton of rushes as an eager puck transporter (he’s a much better skater going forward).
Offensively, he’s also a capable handler and distributor whose point shot is complemented by an aggressive approach. There are also some subtleties to his game (first passes that are almost never off target, a sneaky-silky first touch, etc.). But his modus operandi is that he’s a confident, active, engaged, three-zone player who has almost all of the tools you look for in a top defender.
When his timing is on and he’s stepping up early to take the ice in the neutral zone, he can really dominate a game on both sides of the puck. He can be a little overzealous at times (offensively and defensively), but that eagerness to make something happen also defines his game and he’s a lot to handle when he builds a head of steam through his tall crossovers and starts circling the offensive game. He wants to dictate and influence the game on his terms, rather than wait for it to come to him (which can also come with waiting a little too long to make his decisions at the time, but is more often apparent in quick, aggressive choices). I thought about ranking him ahead of Nemec here, but he has a couple more kinks to iron out.
Jiricek finished third on the Monsters with 38 points (six goals, 32 assists) and led Cleveland's defense in points. He finished tops among AHL rookie defensemen with 0.69 points per game.
Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
Mateychuk, taken right after Jiricek with the 12th overall pick in the Blue Jackets' first round last summer, was ranked 32nd by Wheeler.
Mateychuk has built quite a reputation for himself in hockey circles for his ability to direct play and drive results when he’s on the ice. That style helped him work his way onto Team Canada’s U18 worlds team as an underager and has made him one of the top defencemen in junior hockey the last two seasons. For those reasons, he was named Moose Jaw’s captain last year and will be a big part of the 2024 Canadian world junior team in Gothenburg.
He’s already a plus-level skater, which helps him escape pressure with his feet, push up ice in control, trail in transition, walk the line, and steer opposing players into tough spots despite not being the biggest guy.
Mateychuk’s the definition — or close — of the modern defenceman. He pushes when he can and everything he does is done with poise and command. He plays a reliable and calculating game built around his mobility and sound decision-making. He defends at a high level and is strong over his 5-foot-11 frame. Plus he’s a July birthday so he’s got plenty of time to build on his strong foundation and develop his distinguishing qualities (namely his movement and control of the game).
He just always seems to be involved in all three zones. I see a clear top-four upside and there’s nothing in his game that gives me pause in saying that.
Mateychuk scored 65 points (eight goals, 57 assists) for Moose Jaw last season.
Denton Mateychuk set up Hunter McKown to give their squad an 8-7 lead late, but Adam Fantilli tied it with 2:28 to play. I believe well have a shootout for the @StingerCBJ Cup. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/8PKUNTGYHA
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) July 5, 2023
Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
Dumais is one of Wheeler's favorite prospects.
Ranked 32nd, Dumais's a favorite going back to last summer, before he scored 140 points (54 goals, 86 assists) for the Halifax Mooseheads in the 2022-23 season and won the QMJHL MVP.
One of my favourite prospects in the sport and the most productive player in major junior hockey not named Connor Bedard over the course of the last two seasons, I will be more surprised if Dumais doesn’t make it as a playmaking top-nine winger at this point than I will if he does. That, in and of itself, is no small thing to be saying about a 5-foot-9 third-round pick. But that’s what he’s owed because of one simple fact: Players who’ve produced like he has historically almost never miss. This is a kid who, in his post-draft season, impressed at the Traverse City Prospects Tournament against bigger, older players, rattled off 140 points in junior, and won QMJHL MVP. He should be one of the top-six right wings for Canada at next year’s world juniors. I’m confident he’s going to produce in the AHL when he’s done in junior. And then he’s going to figure it out at NHL pace, despite questions about his size and skating, because he’s too good and too intelligent on the ice not to.
Dumais’ extensions through his stride still need some cleaning up (they can look stunted and drag at the toe caps), but he has become a tremendously hardworking player with a wide-ranging offensive game that allows him to create offence in a variety of ways. He’ll beat you with a quick give-and-go on one shift, a standstill pass or shot on the next, a dance to the high slot on the next, and quick hands and determination around the net on the next. He brings it every night. He tracks back and makes hustle plays. His shot is pinpoint accurate and gets off of his blade effortlessly in catch-and-release sequences. He’s really good along the wall and the backcheck on retrievals and steals. Though he’s not physical, he hunts pucks without fear and willingly engages in puck battles. He’s got A-level vision, hands and anticipation. He’s crafty as anything. He routinely elevates his linemates and does things himself (as evidenced by the uptick in their production and the gap that he still maintains well above and beyond his peers).
Dumais just missed out on the CHL scoring crown as Bedard won it by three points. Here's my article from last year in which Wheeler talks about Dumais as well as Jiricek, Mateychuk, and Kent Johnson.
Dumais is going to be another exciting player to watch this year after his monster year last season. He was drafted as a third-round pick last season by Columbus but made headlines with his monster offensive year.
Brindley and Dumais don't even make it into the Blue Jackets top 5 prospects.
— Byron Bader (@ByronMBader) July 5, 2023
There's no room.
That's how you do it, folks! pic.twitter.com/UNcM3wwcb2
The full pipeline of young talent looks really impressive on paper and is fun to see so many of them on lists like Wheeler's. Now the next step will be seeing how these guys further develop as they get closer to NHL-ready and look to take that next step much sooner than later.
One element towards success will rely on Babcock inserting the kind of structure and program this team needs, as John Tortorella did, to get these players humming at the NHL level.
