Adam Fantilli could use the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship as a “coming out party” for fans looking to get to know the top prospect for the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft.
Fantilli (6-foot-2, 195 pounds) will play for Canada at the tournament. The freshman forward leads the University of Michigan and is tied for third among all NCAA players with 26 points (11 goals, 15 assists) in 16 games.
“I would say there’s pressure on Fantilli here in Canada because Canadian fans don’t get to see him as much,” Ryan Kennedy, editor-in-chief of The Hockey News, said on the latest edition of the “NHL Draft Class.” podcast. “You can catch some NCAA games here and there, but Canada always tends to be major-junior heavy. I think this can really be kind of his coming out party because [the World Juniors] is such a huge cultural event up here and it’s a good kind of pressure.”
There’s no debating the fact that Connor Bedard of Regina in the Western Hockey League is the frontrunner to be the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft, and he is expected to play on the top line for Canada at the WJC.
But Fantilli, like Bedard, is an A rated skater NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary players to watch list presented by BioSteel. It’s expected he will play a second-line role for Canada at the tournament.
“Everybody’s been talking about Bedard for several years now, but now’s the time for Fantilli to show, ‘I’ve got a pretty good game myself,'” Kennedy said. “I think that’s a fun challenge for fans too because he has that speed, that power and that size to almost put himself out there as an alternative, even if Bedard is almost untouchable at this point.”
Kennedy also discussed his top European-born 2023 draft prospect that will play at the tournament, and along with hosts Adam Kimelman and Mike G. Morreale, gave some predictions for the World Juniors, which will be held Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick.
All games in the tournament will be televised live on NHL Network in the United States and TSN in Canada.
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