BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Much of the buzz around the incoming 2023 NHL Draft class is understandably around the forwards. With Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson and Matvei Michkov among the ranks, it's an incredibly strong group.
It's easy for the defensemen to be overlooked this year.
The top two defensemen in this draft are David Reinbacher and Axel Sandin Pellikka. Both blueliners are expected to be mid-first round picks, and could be on the board when the Penguins are on the clock with the 14th overall pick in the draft on June 28 in Nashville, Tenn.
Both defensemen told me they interviewed with the Penguins at last week's scouting combine in Buffalo, N.Y.
We're going to take a look at both players as part of this series looking at potential first-round picks for the Penguins, and we're starting with Sandin Pellikka.
Sandin Pellikka, 18, is the son of Janne Pellikka, a competitive cross-country skier in Sweden. Sandin Pellikka started out on skis himself, until a gift from his grandfather Marten changed his course.
"My grandfather bought me hockey equipment when I was six years old," Sandin Pellikka said. "Basically after the first ice practice I just straight up told my father that we had to quit cross-country skiing because hockey was make way more fun."
Sandin Pellikka's father supported the move, and uses his skiing background to help his son's training for hockey in the summers.
"He helps me with conditioning and and quickness and strength because cross-country skiers, they're terrific at that," Sandin Pellikka explained. "He's a great mentor."
That conditioning work paid off. The NHL makes public the top 25 finishers among the 100-plus players in each fitness test at the scouting combine. Sandin Pellika's name popped up several times on the lists last week.
There are two different aerobic fitness measures that are made public -- the first measures the ability of the player to maintain a minimum speed on an exercise bike for as long as possible. The second part of the test, VO2max, measures the amount of oxygen utilized during maximal exercise, which then tells us about the player's capacity of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to the muscles. Sandin Pellikka had the 16th-best time on the bike, maintaining the minimum speed required for 12:36. He tied for the seventh-best VO2max.
Those tests suggest that Sandin Pellikka would be able to handle heavy minutes in games.
In the anaerobic fitness test, which is conducted by pedaling an exercise bike at max capacity for 30 seconds, Sandin Pellikka tied for the 16th-best average power output.
Part of the musculoskeletal portion of the fitness testing involves a player bench pressing 50% of their body weight and pressing the bar up as fast as possible. Sandin Pellikka had the best score among all prospects in that category.
Sandin Pellikka, who is a right-handed shot, is on the smaller side for a defenseman. He's listed by Central Scouting at 5 foot 11 and 176 pounds. The weight and strength aren't much of a concern -- more often than not, draft-eligible prospects need to get heavier and stronger before they make it to the NHL. They're teenagers. The height is what might cause some teams to hesitate, but some of the better defensemen in the league this season aren't overly big, either. Those are the players that Sandin Pellikka likes to watch and try to emulate.
"I don’t really care that much what people think (about his size),” Sandin Pellikka. “Obviously, there’s a lot of guys that are not that big in NHL. ... I love Cale Makar (5 foot 11), Quinn Hughes (5 foot 10) and Erik Karlsson (6 feet). They're not the biggest guys on the ice, but they can still handle themselves well in NHL. Those are guys I get a lot of inspiration from."
I asked Sandin Pellikka what he thinks separates himself from other defense prospects in this draft, and he pointed to his offensive game.
The EliteProspects scouting report on Sandin Pellikka describes him as "an offensive defenseman with legitimate first-unit power play upside. His puck skills, playmaking, shot, and the ability to walk an offensive blue line make him a credible scoring threat with the puck on his stick, as does his ability to process options and make plays at speed off the rush. The Swedish blueliner is an engaged defender, particularly stout between the blue lines and along the boards."
Sandin Pellikka split this past season between the Swedish club Skelleftea's U20 junior affiliate and the main SHL club. He led the U20 team's defensemen in points with 16 goals and 20 assists in 31 games. He was named the U20 league's top defensemen, and his 16 goals led all defensemen in the league.
Sandin Pellikka scored two goals and three assists in 22 games in Sweden's top men's league, an impressive SHL debut for someone who was 17 for much of the season and playing against grown men. In January he signed an extension with Skelleftea to keep him in Sweden through the 2024-25 season.
"I like to have the puck as much as I can," Sandin Pellikka said about his offensive game. "I like to play many minutes in the games and be on the power play."
Sandin Pellikka had a strong year on the international stage, too. He represented Sweden in both the U18 and U20 World Junior Championships. He scored two goals and nine assists in seven games in the U18 tournament, helping to lead Sweden to a silver medal. He took home the award for the tournament's top defenseman. He had one assist in seven games in the U20 tournament, and his average ice time of 19:54 led his team.
While Sandin Pellikka's strength is his offensive game, that doesn't mean he isn't consistently working on improving on the other side of the puck. Getting better in his own end was one of his biggest focuses this season.
"A thing I've been working on this offseason is just getting stronger in the defensive zone," he said. "I feel like I can still position myself pretty well. Especially on the smaller ice, I feel like it's easier to defend. With the SHL (assistant) coach Pierre Johnsson, he always takes me aside after practices and makes me do one-on-one drills against him on the boards and basically makes me beat him down just so I can get strong at that. He helped me a lot."
It was an unexpectedly strong season overall for Sandin Pellikka, who said his primary goals coming into the year were to practice with the SHL team and just make his SHL debut. Asked what led to such a rise this season, Sandin Pellikka pointed to his father's mentorship -- not in terms of the physical training, but more so with the mental side of things.
"Just simple things," Sandin Pellikka said of that mentorship. "Like, he sends some forms. I write down three things I do well and one thing I want to do better and how I want to improve it until the next game or next practice. That's the thing, just helping me put things aside. Like if I had a bad game, I just write down the things and just put it behind me and focus on the next one. It's been a long season, I played I think 114 games with exhibition games counted. So being strong mentally is something that has helped me a lot this season."
Sandin Pellikka said he hasn't given much thought to defensemen like him going under the radar with such a top-heavy draft class at forward. He's just looking forward to hearing his name called, wherever that may be.
"It's going to be a terrific experience," he said. "I just want to enjoy it and we'll see what happens in Nashville."
This is the third story in a series of player profiles from the NHL's Scouting Combine in Buffalo, N.Y., focusing on potential first-round picks for the Penguins.
