It was the worst-kept secret in hockey.

The Chicago Blackhawks surprised precisely no one when they made Canadian junior hockey sensation Connor Bedard the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft, which got underway Wednesday with Round 1 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

The 17-year-old out of British Columbia has been one of the most hyped prospects in recent history, and the 71 goals and 143 points he put up in just 57 games with the Western Hockey League's Regina Pats this past season did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm.

The Blackhawks won the right to select him when they vaulted past Columbus and Anaheim at the draft lottery last month and into the No. 1 selection position.

It was their first time in the top spot since 2007 when they grabbed Patrick Kane from the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights. He scored 446 goals, won a case full of individual awards and hoisted three Stanley Cups in a Chicago sweater before he was dealt to the New York Rangers just before the trade deadline in late February.

Bedard was ranked first among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.

"It's incredible. I couldn't be happier. Can't wait to get started," he said on ESPN's broadcast.

Chicago opens its regular season against Pittsburgh and Sidney Crosby, Bedard's favorite player as a kid, on October 10. Assuming he makes the opening-night roster, he is set to meet his idol, who debuted in the NHL the year Bedard was born.

"If that happens," he said, "I don't think you could script it any better."

Rounds 2-7 of the 2023 draft will air at 11 a.m. ET on Friday on ESPN/ESPN+.

The B/R ice hockey team was on hand for all Wednesday's festivities and came up with a list of the real winners and losers from the selection show's opening round.

Read on to take a look at our picks and drop a comment or two to let us know how we did.

Winner: New Jersey Devils

The Blackhawks landed the highest-profile pre-NHL player, but no team has had a better offseason with established talent than the New Jersey Devils.

The league's Garden State residents had already engineered the biggest regular-season turnaround of 2022-23, nearly doubling their 63 points of the previous season to 112 while vaulting all the way from 28th overall to third among 32 teams.

New Jersey rallied from a 2-0 deficit to eliminate the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs before falling to the No. 2 Carolina Hurricanes. They got started on the 2023-24 season on Tuesday with a trade that brought 34-goal scorer Tyler Toffoli from the Calgary Flames for 25-year-old center Yegor Sharangovich and a third-round pick.

Step two in the process came a few hours before Wednesday's draft started when they re-signed Swiss-born winger Timo Meier, who'd come over at the deadline from San Jose and was headed for unrestricted free agency, to an eight-year deal worth $8.8 million annually.

The Devils have been rumored to be in the mix to add Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck if the Jets choose to move him before his free agency arrives next summer. And if GM Tom Fitzgerald is able to pull that off, he might want to start mapping would-be parade routes, too.

Winner: Surprises After Bedard

In reality, Bedard had been the consensus No. 1 pick since he left middle school.

The pecking order of the guys coming after him wasn't quite so set, though.

Still, the smartest money going into Wednesday night had University of Michigan product Adam Fantilli, ranked second among North Americans by NHL Central Scouting, going second to the Anaheim Ducks.

However, Ducks GM Pat Verbeek made the first surprising move of the night when he strode to the podium and called the name of Sweden-born center Leo Carlsson, a 6'2", 194-pounder who spent last season playing against professionals in the Swedish Hockey League.

The 18-year-old was ranked first among European skaters by NHL Central Scouting.

"It's been a process for the last month or so and we've had a lot of good debates," Verbeek said. "We were really impressed by his hockey IQ and creativity. I think there's potential for him to be a dominant player on both ends of the ice."

The Columbus Blue Jackets immediately pounced on Fantilli with pick No. 3, and San Jose made Will Smith, a product of the U.S. national development program, the fourth straight center selected when he went No. 4 to the Sharks.

Montreal and Arizona broke the run of centers and upped the ante on surprises when they took Swiss blue liner David Reinbacher with the No. 5 pick and Russian defenseman Dmitriy Simashev at No. 6. They'd been ranked fifth and 19th among Europeans, respectively.

Loser: Name Flubs

As uncomfortable moments go, it was a big one.

Montreal GM Kent Hughes gave the requisite thank you to the hosts in Nashville and congratulations to the Vegas Golden Knights on their recent Cup win before ceding the stage to longtime franchise stalwart and former Vezina winner Carey Price.

Price's one job: Announce Swiss defenseman David Reinbacher as the Canadiens' first pick in this year's draft.

But it didn't go so well.

A pale and sweaty Price went bilingual in greeting the Tennessee crowd but looked rattled at the assignment and stumbled instantly after saying the player's first name.

He turned sheepishly toward Hughes to get the name out after a few interminable seconds and make the pick official as the hosts and fans tittered and Twitter reactions flowed.

"We planned it that way," Hughes said.

Price's stumble stood alone as the night's most noticeable blooper until 19 picks later, when another Vezina-winning goalie, Nashville's retired stalwart Pekka Rinne, botched his former team's pick of Western Hockey League defenseman Tanner Molendyk at No. 24.

The Finnish-born Rinne, who was joined on stage by former teammate and holdover Predators captain Roman Josi, was slightly less awkward in his delivery than Price and was certainly in front of a more forgiving crowd, drawing cheers inside the Bridgestone Arena after finally working his way through the draftee's three-syllable surname.

Winner: Flyers' Rebuild

He wasn't the first pick.

But outside of Berard's slam-dunk selection at No. 1, no first-round pick generated the immediate buzz than the one that surrounded Matvei Michkov.

He was ranked second among European skaters by NHL Central Scouting but may have been passed on by several teams because of the three years remaining on a contract to play in the Russia-based KHL, considered one of the world's most elite leagues.

That allowed the Philadelphia Flyers to snap him up at No. 7, making him the first pick of a new regime that took hold last month when ex-Flyer Daniel Brière was hired as GM and another former player, Keith Jones, took over as president of hockey operations.

"We can't wait to have that answer," Brière said when asked when Michkov could arrive in Philadelphia. "After watching him play and meeting him, it's a talent we could not pass up. If we have to wait, we'll wait. It is what it is. But he convinced us he wanted to be a Flyer."

The 18-year-old scored 20 points in 27 games last season, which placed him fourth on his team though he played 28 games fewer than the players ahead of him.

In fact, ESPN analyst Brian Boucher, another former Flyer, suggested he could have been a top pick if not for the KHL commitment and the current geopolitical situation involving Russia.

He was the second of three Russians to go in the top 12, following Arizona's picks of Dmitriy Simashev at No. 6 and Danil But at No. 12.

And if nothing else, Michkov said all the right things.

"I'm delighted to be a Flyer," he said. "I have no words. It's such an emotional moment. It's my dream to be (in the NHL). My dream is also to win the Stanley Cup."

Loser: Metropolitan Division

When it comes to the Metropolitan Division, we won't pretend that the Philadelphia Flyers and Columbus Blue Jackets have been scaring many teams lately.

The Flyers haven't made the playoffs in three seasons since earning the Eastern Conference's No. 1 playoff seed in 2020, and the Blue Jackets have experienced a similar drought since winning a qualifying-round series in that COVID-impacted postseason.

The two teams, in fact, were seventh and eighth in the division in 2022-23.

But if Wednesday's optimism is anywhere near accurate, things could be changing.

The Blue Jackets grabbed their franchise center when Adam Fantilli fell to them at pick No. 3 after Bedard and Leo Carlsson, and the Flyers generated a significant buzz on the broadcast and among the fanbase when they snatched KHL winger Matvei Michkov at No. 7.

Columbus had been busy in the days leading up to the draft, grabbing defenseman Ivan Provorov in a three-team deal that involved Los Angeles and Philadelphia and defenseman Damon Severson in a sign-and-trade from the New Jersey Devils.

The rebuilding Flyers had made news, too, when they sent center Kevin Hayes and half of his $7.14 million salary to St. Louis for a draft pick. They used a pick acquired in the Provorov deal to select 6'2" defenseman Oliver Bonk from London of the OHL at No. 22.

Bonk is the son of Radek Bonk, who was chosen No. 3 overall in 1994 and played 969 NHL games through the 2008-09 season.

"It's a swing for the fences, but if he comes over and develops this is a huge get at 7," ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes said of the Michkov pick. "This could be the electrifying product they've needed for so long and it's the best pick they could have made out of what was available."

Loser: Trade (In)Action

Make no mistake, it has been a busy week when it comes to trades.

Pierre-Luc Dubois went from Winnipeg to Los Angeles. Taylor Hall went from Boston to Chicago. And Ryan Johansen went from Nashville to Colorado.

But a lot of transaction watchers went in to Wednesday night's opening round expecting a flurry of deals involving future-focused teams looking to acquire high-end draft capital and/or salary space by offloading established NHL talent heading toward free agency.

Then the first round came and went with, well...nothing much.

Though the breaking-news crawl underneath ESPN's broadcast occasionally buzzed with minor moves involving players such as Reilly Smith (from Vegas to Pittsburgh) and Mackenzie Blackwood (from New Jersey to San Jose), there were precisely zero moves involving first-round picks.

"That's a big surprise," ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes said. "I can't understand. Why?"

All Picks from 1st Round of the 2023 NHL Draft

1. Chicago Blackhawks: Connor Bedard

2. Anaheim Ducks: Leo Carlsson

3. Columbus Blue Jackets: Adam Fantilli

4. San Jose Sharks: Will Smith

5. Montreal Canadiens: David Reinbacher

6. Arizona Coyotes: Dmitriy Simashev

7. Philadelphia Flyers: Matvei Michkov

8. Washington Capitals: Ryan Leonard

9. Detroit Red Wings: Nate Danielson

10. St. Louis Blues: Dalibor Dvorsky

11. Vancouver Canucks: Tom Willander

12. Arizona Coyotes (from OTT): Danil But

13. Buffalo Sabres: Zach Benson

14. Pittsburgh Penguins: Brayden Yager

15. Nashville Predators: Matthew Wood

16. Calgary Flames: Samuel Honzek

17. Detroit Red Wings (from NYI via VAN): Axel Sandin Pellikka

18. Winnipeg Jets: Colby Barlow

19. Chicago Blackhawks (from TB): Oliver Moore

20. Seattle Kraken: Eduard Sale

21. Minnesota Wild: Charlie Stramel

22. Philadelphia Flyers (from LA via CBJ): Oliver Bonk

23. New York Rangers: Gabriel Perreault

24. Nashville Predators (from EDM): Tanner Molendyk

25. St. Louis Blues (from TOR): Otto Stenberg

26. San Jose Sharks (from NJ): Quentin Musty

27. Colorado Avalanche: Calum Ritchie

28. Toronto Maple Leafs (from BOS via WSH): Easton Cowan

29. St. Louis Blues (from DAL via NYR): Theo Lindstein

30. Carolina Hurricanes: Bradly Nadeau

31. Colorado Avalanche (from FLA via MTL): Mikhail Gulyayev

32. Vegas Golden Knights: David Edstrom