LOS ANGELES — The 2023 National Hockey League Draft has come and gone, and after a first day when they were pretty much just a spectator without a first-round pick, the Los Angeles Kings finally got their chance to add new, young prospects to their fold, adding five players in rounds 2-7 on June 29.
“It was a really good draft,” said Kings Director of Amateur Scouting Mark Yannetti during an exclusive interview. “There were good players available deeper into the draft. The top 10-12 [players selected] were really good. The draft lived up to the hype, in terms of its projected strength. There were a lot of good players still available late in the second and third rounds, not that there weren’t good player in the [later rounds]. There was a parade of good players this year.”
Yannetti characterized the 2023 draft as a good one for the Kings, given the limitations of not having a first-round pick.
“I think it was an excellent draft for us,” he said. “We had a really good feeling about this draft. I think that when people look back at this draft four or five years from now, and be really happy with it.”
“It was a very good draft for us,” added Yannetti. “I hoped that we could move back and get a few more picks, and we were prepared to move up. We had an opportunity to move up into the late 30’s in the second round. That presented itself [on June 28]. But we determined that there was a good likelihood that we would get one of three players [that they had targeted for their second-round pick] if we stayed at 54. If we moved up, it would’ve cost us an asset.”
They also considered moving from the 78th overall pick in the third round.
“Moving up or back from the 54th or the 78th pick didn’t seem intelligent,” Yannetti noted. “If we were going to move up from 54, we would’ve gotten one of the three players that we wanted, and we got that player at 54. If we were going to move back, there was only one of those players left, so that would’ve added too much risk.”
“We also had some discussions with Anaheim about the 50th pick,” Yannetti added. “Ultimately, they didn’t want to do it.”
The Kings tried to nab another player in the fourth round, but were unable to make the deal they wanted in order to do so.
“We had a chance to move up to get a guy in the fourth round, which we actually tried to do,” said Yannetti. “I think I made twelve calls, and they were all rebuffed. We almost had a deal with Nashville, but in the end, it didn’t work out.”
The Kings’ fifth round pick was also considered for a trade. But that didn’t happen, either.
“We could’ve traded our fifth-round pick, and gotten a sixth and a seventh-round pick,” said Yannetti. “That would’ve given us two sixth-round picks and one in the seventh round. I think we would’ve gotten the same two players, but not without some risk, so that move didn’t make sense, and we really didn’t see a player who gave us a really good feel in the seventh round, so that deal didn’t make sense.”
2023 NHL Draft – Los Angeles Kings
Round 2
Jakub Dvorak (54th overall)
Defenseman, Bílí Tygři Liberec of Czech Extraliga, Czechia’s top professional hockey league. 6-5, 209 pounds. 18 years old. Left-hand shot. Hometown: Liberec, Czechia.
Ranked 15th by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau among European skaters.
Yannetti on Dvorak
Huge. He’s over 6-4, but he’s not just tall. Our strength guys also measure wingspan, too, because it’s a different function of height or size. You can be tall and still play short, or you can be small and still play long, depending on your wingspan. He’s tall and he has a giant wingspan. He’s really long. It gives him defensive length.
The second thing is that he’s a very good skater. He’s not a top tier skater, but he’s already an NHL-level skater. He just needs to get a little stronger, which will help his base. When you see tall kids at that age, every once in a while, they can lose their base. Once he gets stronger, he’ll go from a very good skater, to, I wouldn’t say an elite skater, but to pushing the upper tiers of skating.
He’s a very good defender. He keeps the play in front of him well, and he’s well-positioned. He could be a little more physical, in terms of being a little heavier, a little grittier. That said, he gets in the way, he finishes guys, he uses his body to pin guys, or to block guys out, so it’s not that there’s a lack of physicality. It’s solid and consistent. It’s just that it could be more consistently heavy or abrasive. But he’s a 17-year-old kid playing in a men’s league, so that’s not unexpected. You don’t see young kids running guys and being physical like that in a men’s league. He’ll never be a killer, but the physical element is there.
He’s very good at moving the puck up ice. He’s got the ability to skate it up ice. He’s a very good first pass/first option guy. He moves the puck quickly and efficiently. He can use his feet to buy some second option time, but his bread and butter is using his feet to quickly open up a lane, and move the puck quickly, or to gain the red or blue lines and dump it in.
His biggest weakness is offense. It looks like there will not be a primary offensive element with him. He’s got a chance to be a second pairing, first penalty-kill, defensive shutdown guy, but not a limited sixth defenseman guy because he can move the puck and he can skate it.
Round 3
Koehn Ziemmer (78th overall)
Right wing, Prince George Cougars, Western Hockey League. 6-0, 183 pounds. 18 years old. Right-hand shot. Hometown: Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Canada.
Ranked 25th by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau among North American skaters.
Yannetti on Ziemmer
I really like him at 78. He had 89 points with 41 goals [last season]. He had 30 goals [the previous season]. That’s two 30-goal seasons in the WHL before his 18th birthday. He plays with some grit and some toughness. He’s not afraid to drop the gloves.
Our strength guys identified at the [NHL Draft Combine] that, in terms of body development, he’s a big, thick kid, but the weight distribution is not ideal. So there’s a lot of room for him to grow, physically. He’s not likely to get a lot bigger, in terms of weight, the way his weight can be distributed could really aid his biggest weakness, which is skating, so there’s a lot of optimism there.
Elite shot. Big, wide body, but he needs to distribute his weight better. He’ll benefit greatly from a structured training program.
Skating would be his weakness, which is the reason he fell [in the draft rankings]. There are some similarities to Tyler Toffoli in the reasons why they fell. Tyler didn’t train really hard when he was 16 or 17 years old. He only started to get it a little bit in the year after he was drafted.
Ziemmer is a slightly worse skater than Toffoli [was]. But he’s a lot bigger, and has a lot more room to grow. I don’t think he’ll become as good a skater as Toffoli is now, but Tyler didn’t buy in a lot to the off-ice part of the game early in his career. He had to learn that, and once he did, his game at the pro level took off. I think Ziemmer is in the same boat. He has to learn the off-ice part, which will improve his skating.
If his skating can get close to the NHL average, he is a top-six forward all day, and has elements of power in his body. When he hits, he hits hard. He’s abrasive. When you take all that and put it into a 210-pound, wide body guy who can shoot the lights out and has a balanced playmaking game—he’s got a lot of special attributes that are hampered by his skating.
Round 4
Hampton Slukynsky (118th overall)
Goaltender, United States National U18 Team (National Team Development Program). 6-1, 179 pounds. 17 years old. Catches left. Hometown: Warroad, Minnesota.
Ranked 15th by the NHL by Central Scouting Bureau among North American goaltenders.
Yannetti on Slukynsky
The goalies went fast. When we got to that pick, there were two players [that they had targeted]. It was nice that one was a goalie, so need met best player available. It’s always nice when those two coincide.
We didn’t have a chance on the top three goalies in the draft, but we like his potential and his development curve. He’s a guy we identified early on. He played in a very low-level league, a high school league in Minnesota, and not in the top division there. Players in leagues like this one often don’t get scouted heavily. But he had incredible success last season, going 28-1-1. He was undefeated until his last game, which he lost in double or triple overtime. Then he goes to the U.S. Development Team. He didn’t get a lot of ice time there, but when he did, he played well. He was able to adapt to a much higher level of play seamlessly.
He’s untainted. You see all these young goalies—from the time they are ten years old to the time they turn pro, they have their own personal goalie coach, and a team goalie coach. But not this guy. He never had a goalie coach. It’s a really cool story in that he has been self-taught. When we watch some the things he does, he does them instinctively. He has a higher hockey IQ as a goalie. It’s just natural. It’s not something that you’d be able to learn. When you see some of the anticipation moves he makes, the reads, despite not being taught, he has solid structure. He’s explosive when he needs to be. He’s already a good player. He’s someone who you can help to improve. We have a long time with him. He’ll play in the USHL next year, and then go to Northern Michigan. You always want more time with goalies, and we’ll have five years with him. Billy Ranford called him a ‘piece of clay.’ We’ll have a unique opportunity to help him realize his potential.
Round 5
Matthew Mania (150th overall)
Defenseman, Sudbury Wolves, Ontario Hockey League. 6-1, 187 pounds. 18 years old. Right-hand shot. Hometown: Brandon, Florida.
Ranked 70th by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau among North American skaters.
Yannetti on Mania
Incomplete defenseman. Extremely good offensively. Excellent skater. Very good skill. Good five-on-five offense and solid on the power play. He moves really well along the blue line with a very good shot. He possesses all the natural attributes that a successful offensive defenseman needs in order to be productive.
He struggles defensively, at times. He really need to work on that to round out his game. He’s got such good skill and skating ability that he can get himself into and out of trouble. He has to work on structuring his game much better, defensively, and there needs to be a little more buy-in to the defensive side of the game. He needs to work on all aspects of his defensive game.
We see it often from kids at this level. The offensive part of the game is a lot more fun, and when you have offensive success in the junior leagues, even if you’re not having success defensively, it often doesn’t affect your ice time, so there aren’t a whole lot of consequences. That’s why you often see offensive defenseman coming out of junior hockey who have defensive deficiencies.
Round 6
Ryan Conmy (182nd overall)
Right wing, University of New Hampshire, Hockey East (NCAA). 5-10, 187 pounds. 18 years old. Right-hand shot. Hometown: Alexandria, Virginia.
Ranked 112th by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau among North American skaters.
Yannetti on Conmy
Really skilled player with an excellent release on his shot. Strong offensive game. The numbers he put up in the USHL—for a first-year USHL player were really good, and then, when you consider the league he played in before that, they’re even better.
He’s a bit undersized. He’ll have to get bigger and stronger. He’s good skater, he’s skilled, but he’s going to have to round out his game. He’s a little one-dimensional offensively, right now.
His defensive game isn’t bad, but it’s not his strong suit. It’s not good enough for the next level. He recognizes things, he’s got defensive hockey sense. He knows where he has to be. He does cheat to the offense, at times. At his size, he sometimes gets overmatched, defensively, so at his size, he’s going to have to get a lot stronger so that he can win some of those defensive matchups against bigger guys, because he’s not going to be able to out-think or out-skate them at the next level.
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