Why the Sharks drafting Adam Fantilli would be much more than a Connor Bedard consolation prize
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — An NHL team is going to win the 2023 draft lottery but not end up with The Guy everyone has been talking about for more than a year prior to the night when deputy commissioner Bill Daly reveals the selection order.
There are two selections determined by the lottery. The team that selects first is all but a lock to pick Connor Bedard, a player that generates more debate about being “the best prospect since …” than comparing him to anyone in his class.
Bedard is a wonderful, franchise-changing talent. But what might make this 2023 draft class truly memorable is the guys who come after him.
Adam Fantilli is the near-consensus favorite to be the second name called June 29 at Bridgestone Arena. Two of the most popular phrases when his name is mentioned, “would you rather have Fantilli or (insert recent No. 1 pick here)” and “the best No. 2-ranked prospect since …”
“I don’t think there is any perfect 18-year-old player. Even like Connor McDavid, nobody is perfect,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato told The Athletic. “But (Fantilli) is a winning player. I think he just does some special stuff.”
Fantilli has been the most prolific player in college hockey this season … make that the past several seasons. His production invokes comparisons to some of the top singular seasons in recent NCAA history.
It could be the best freshman season since Jack Eichel, who won the Hobey Baker Award as the nation’s top player while playing for Sharks coach David Quinn at Boston University. When briefed that Fantilli was drawing comparisons to Eichel very early in this season, Quinn’s first response was to wait and see.
Quinn remembered the nights when older, bigger players made it a point to try to rough up Eichel, and noted that the NCAA season is a long one. Fantilli has absorbed the hype and the attention, and he continues to dominate at a historic pace.
“I knew he was a good player, but he picks things up quicker than I would have thought as a young player. That’s the best part for me,” Naurato said. “He’s such a student of the game. A lot of people watch hockey and study hockey, but the way he takes constructive criticism and wants to keep adding to areas of his games, I’d say he has exceeded expectations.
“The role he has on our team and the impact he’s had … you look at (Matty) Beniers and (Kent) Johnson … those guys are really good players and they haven’t done what he’s doing.”
Eichel dominated college hockey en route to being the No. 2 selection in the 2015 draft. The guy drafted before him (McDavid) was The Guy for multiple years leading up to that draft. Eichel was hailed as one top No. 2 picks of all time and a potential franchise center.
That sounds a lot like Fantilli. He also has a chance to win the Hobey Baker. He will be a significant betting favorite to get drafted at No. 2. He looks like a potential franchise center.
Fantilli has 17 goals and an NCAA-leading 45 points, despite playing in just 24 games (1.88 points per contest) because of his time at the World Junior Championship.
“Honestly, (winning the Hobey Baker) didn’t really cross my mind in the offseason,” Fantilli said. “With the guys that came back, like (Matthew) Knies coming back (for Minnesota), (Luke) Hughes coming back into this league, I didn’t even think about it. I was just trying to have the best freshman year I could have. So the fact that I’m in the conversation for that is an honor and I’m really grateful for it, but I’m trying to keep my eyes focused on our team and going as far as we can together.”
Fantilli checks all of the boxes that teams look for in a No. 1 center. Size, skating, passing, shooting, the early stages of defensive aptitude. It’s all there.
It’s not hard to watch No. 19 swoop through the middle of the ice with the puck, or make one-step-ahead decisions on the power play and not see a younger version of the other guys who have worn that number as NHL stars.
“He is special,” Naurato said. “He can fly. He can rip it. He’s nasty. I bet he can fight. He can hit. He’s physical. He’s really hard defensively. He’s created a ton off the forecheck for us. He plays hard defensively. You look at these top guys who are ultra skilled, when they come into their own and hit their prime and really learn how to check, guys like (Sidney) Crosby and (Henrik) Zetterberg and (Pavel) Datsyuk — those guys brought it all. They weren’t just point guys. I think that’s going to be Adam’s best attribute.”
Fantilli also does not lack confidence. He was hyped as one of the best players in his age group when he entered the USHL with the Chicago Steel, and he dominated in a way that other future NHL stars that came through that program did not.
Michigan, with its assembly line of high-profile prospects, is something of a villain for its NCAA rivals. Fantilli’s arsenal of goal celebrations is as deep and impressive as his skill set, and he embraces wearing the proverbial black hat in opposing barns.
“He’s ultra, ultra competitive,” Naurato said. “The good thing about Adam is you can coach him. You can give him a hug. You can get on him. You can coach him in multiple ways, because he wants the information. He wants to be better.
“He wants to be a pro. When he watches video and something’s not going right, he wants to know why and how he can fix it. Like with every really good player, that usually happens pretty quickly.”
Fantilli doesn’t physically dominate his foes on a consistent basis … yet. There’s plenty of room for him to grow and add muscle to better compete in the hard areas of the ice, but he’s already shown a willingness to engage in physical battles with older, bigger opponents.
“When you go up a level, you always want to get bigger, faster, stronger, especially playing against 21-, 22-, 23-year-old men,” Fantilli said. “When I stepped into our locker room, I really saw how big our guys are then how big the other teams are. It’s a fast game. There’s not a lot of space out there, unless you’re playing Minnesota.
“I’m really trying to work on making quicker plays … just get better at my position, trying to be more sound. Try to be the best two-way forward I can be. I want to keep rolling with how I’ve been rolling.”
Fantilli’s brush with adversity is a very first-world problem in prospect terms. His incredible production early in his freshman season led to a sliver of discussion before the WJC about whether or not he could actually challenge Bedard for the No. 1 spot in this class.
Bedard produced a historic WJC, leading Canada to the gold medal. Fantilli’s tournament was good, at least for a 17-year-old playing for Canada in nearly any other year. Plenty of future NHL superstars don’t even make Canada’s roster as underage player. But measured against Bedard, it was considered a disappointment, and the debate about the top pick in this class is likely finished.
While Fantilli did not produce like Bedard, NHL teams are likely to be more than satisfied with how he handled the “adversity.” He accepted a lesser role for Canada and scored a big goal against the United States in the knockout round.
He also returned to Michigan and immediately began dominating college hockey teams again. Fantilli has six goals and 18 points in eight games since the WJC.
“I think Adam, right away (as an NHL player), because he’s so competitive and always adding things to his game and obviously the high-end skill set that he has, I think he can play on the top line if there’s an injury or he can play on the fourth line and check,” Naurato said. “I think he showed that at the world juniors. They took him out of a scoring role and the way he handled that was unbelievable.”
Center is one position where the Sharks can feel reasonably confident, both now and in the future. Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture are a solid one-two punch, and both are producing at a high rate this season. Two of the club’s top prospects, Filip Bystedt and Cam Lund, profile as future NHL centers.
But neither of them has the upside that Fantilli possesses. His ceiling is higher than the heights Hertl and Couture have reached in their careers as well.
“We got some older guys, and then we’ve got a little bit of a middle class,” Grier said. “Right now, we don’t really have young guys pushing to grab the torch from the older guys, which I think you’ve had that in the past. Whether you’ve had Jumbos (Joe Thornton) and Pattys (Patrick Marleau) and (Joe Pavelski) here, and you had Tomas and Logan and those guys kind of pushing up from the bottom to kind of grab the mantle. To some degree, if I was going to point to one thing where we’re kind of right now, we don’t have those young guys who are ready to kind of take over the core.”
Sharks fans, like their peers in Columbus, Chicago, Anaheim and other cities where the NHL club is near the bottom of the standings, have clamored for Bedard since the first day of training camp, if not before.
If the Sharks are fortunate enough to be awarded the No. 2 selection in the 2023 draft, there will probably be some level of disappointment about missing out on Bedard. But the Sharks would be plenty excited to add a player like Fantilli, a player with the talent and drive to be a franchise player and the face of a new era of hockey in San Jose as well.
