I'm higher on the top tier forwards than defenders early on. They're a bit more polished. Not just the top three but Catton was also pretty phenomenal for Canada at the Hlinka whenever they needed him to be. Add in Helenius and perhaps Connelly and I'm more sold on the top forwards early on as more readymade potential stars. Jiricek was quite good at the Hlinka but I don't know about his PPQB upside. Dickinson was underwhelming shift-to-shift. Silayev coming out of nowhere based on a few early season games against men shows how soft assessments are at this stage. The top 11 on McKenzie's list seems like a bit of a tier separation early on.
We'll see who puts it all together over the course of the season. I do think they should ideally pick a center or defenseman, shooting for foundational type upside. BPA always but I wonder about the viability of being boosted back into the top half of the league largely via wingers. It could enable them to spend elsewhere but then I also wonder if committing to post-peak C/D is the ticket either. Acquiring play drivers from the premium positions seems like a really big deal in how they'll manage to more fully become a more refreshed team again. Unfortunately early on after Celebrini & Catton the center crop doesn't seem terribly promising. Again, it's early, but more in the mid-range the options seem to be value wingers and then a few promising blueliners.
I'd think this season realistically has more downside than upside competitively. I have faith in Carbery making it work but to what extent this core group is still up for being defensively stout is a big question. Not just the standard set by the core group but also the makeup of the blueline overall minus Orlov and whether some will step up and handle more challenging roles. There probably won't be many outlets penciling them into the playoffs. Picking somewhere in the 11-18 range seems fair, maybe higher if injuries are an issue again.