Since the NHL began its player entry draft in 1963 there have been many great classes throughout its history, but the class that has stood out above the rest is the 2003 group due to its depth of talent.

Now 20 years later, the 2023 class has the potential to be one of the best groups ever with very elite talent at the top and tons of the depth making for an interesting draft well past the first round.

Marc-Andre Fleury was the first player selected 20 years ago and has gone on to have an impressive career in which he won three Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins who selected him and individually he has taken home a Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender and the Jennings Trophy with NHL’s lowest goals against.

Fleury was just the tip of the iceberg with elite talents such as Eric Staal, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Pavelski, Corey Perry, Zach Praise, Brent Burns, Jeff Carter, Thomas Vanek, Dustin Brown, Ryan Suter, Loui Eriksson, Shea Weber, Ryan Kesler, David Backes, Dustin Byfuglien, Dion Phaneuf, Mike Richards, Brent Seabrook, Corey Crawford, Jimmy Howard, Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak.

That group, the very best of the class, combines for 19 Stanley Cups, 13 Olympic gold medals, seven World Championship golds, six Jennings Awards, six Selke Awards, and one of each the Vezina, Rocket Richard, Norris and Hart trophies.

While it is tough to predict, if there is a class to reach those heights it’s the one headlined by Connor Bedard — a prospect of the same quality as Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky.

However, the name at the top does not alone make a draft class great, but it’s the depth of talent. In the Bedard class, there is no shortage of highly talented players. There is not much more to say about Bedard that hasn’t already been said, but joining him in this draft are three other players which will be franchise-altering picks in Canadian center Adam Fantilli from the University of Michigan, Swedish center Leo Carlsson from Orebro HK and Russian winger Matvei Michkov from HK Sochi.

Fantilli is most likely to be taken second overall by the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday and it’s for good reason as the 6-foot, 2-inch and 187-pound center would be worthy of the top pick in most drafts. Just like in the McDavid draft, there was a big consolation prize in Jack Eichel. Similar to Eichel, Fantilli was the best player in the NCAA as a true freshman and claimed the Hobey Baker Award after scoring 30 goals, 30 assists for 65 points in 36 games.

After Fantilli hears his name called, the third player to come off the board should be Carlsson, who is one of the best Swedish prospects of all time, scoring 10 goals and 15 assists for 15 points in 44 games in the Swedish Hockey League as a teenager. The 6-foot, 3-inch Carlsson will make an immediate impact on any roster and with the push Columbus is looking to make they should be running up to the podium to take him at No. 3.

While Bedard, Fantilli and Carlsson should be the top-three selections, Michkov might have to wait to hear his name, but it has nothing to do with his talent. In fact, he is the second best prospect in the class from a talent perspective.

What holds Michkov back are two thing out of his control: him being a Russian citizen and him being a winger with two more years left on his KHL contract. There has been a long bias against Russian hockey players ever since the days of the Soviets. With the invasion of Ukraine there has been good reason for teams to be fearful of drafting them. However, what Michkov can control is that he is a winger, but that should not be held against him as he is the greatest Russian prospect since Alexander Ovechkin.

The 5-foot, 10-inch winger scored nine goals and 11 assists for 20 points in 27 games in the KHL. Just like the undersized Bedard, Michkov boasts a wicked shot and incredible vision, with his tools it is easy to envision him as the next Nikita Kucherov.

Michkov has the talent to be selected anywhere from No. 2 to No. 4, but the way scouts view Russians and having to wait three seasons to add him to their lineup, general managers on the hot seat might select a player quicker to impact the lineup.

The player most likely to supplant Michkov in the top four picks is Will Smith from the US National Team Development Program. The 6-foot center is a dynamic, shifty playmaker that scored at an elite level with 51 goals and 76 assists for 127 points with the program this season. Smith is an American prospect just below the level of superstar Jack Hughes and has many qualities of a player worthy of the first selection in most seasons.

Bedard, Fantilli, Carlsson, Michkov and Smith are the consensus top-five players in the draft, but beyond them are 23 forwards on my draft board worthy of a first-round selection that could potentially become top-six players at the NHL level. Some of the big names that will be selected after the top five include Zach Benson, Oliver Moore, Gabe Perreault, Ryan Leonard, Dalibory Dvorsky, Andrew Cristall, Quentin Musty, Riley Heidt, Colby Barlow, Nate Danielson, Cal Ritchie, Brayden Yager, Matthew Wood and Samuel Honzek.

The one weakness of the draft is its defensemen, specifically its lack of a top end offensive defenseman. The top quartet of defenders are right-handed defenders David Reinbacher, Axel Sandin-Pellikka and Tom Willander, and left-handed defender Dmitri Simashev. None of the defenders are worthy of a top-10 pick in my opinion due to their lack of offensive upside and separation from the rest of the defensive class.

In terms of value, it would be wasteful to select any of these defenders in the top 10 when there will be several defenders in the second and even third rounds that have the potential to be just as impactful at the NHL level. The three most valuable traits in an elite, top-pair defenseman are skating ability to transport pucks and attack offensively on the rush, vision/hockey IQ to generate offense and physical tools like height and weight to effectively defend the big bodies at the NHL level. While the quartet of Reinbacher, Sandin-Pellikka, Willander and Simashev will be NHL-caliber players, they do not possess enough talent to be selected so high when players like Mikhail Gulyayev, Beau Akey, Lukas Dragicevic, Hunter Brzustewicz, Tanner Molendyk and Etienne Morin will be available after the elite forward talent has already been selected.

On Wednesday, the day of the draft, I will provide my analysis on which players are best fits for the Buffalo Sabres at No. 13 and what the Pittsburgh Penguins should do at No. 14. This article can be used to look at some of the names you will hear watching the early parts of Wednesday’s draft and will be the front runners to make the 2023 class as memorable as the 2003 group.