I'd personally trade up for Carter Bear if he's still there at between 12-15
He's definitely up there in talent level, IQ, and effort, that's for sure. In fact, I'd say that Bear is closer to the top-5 than to the 15th rank out of all prospects in this year's draft if we look only at those three attributes.
The only issue is that the last time a highly-touted prospect tore-up his achilles before the draft was Peyton Krebs, and he went from borderline-elite speed going into the draft to basically NHL-average afterwards.
Achilles tear injuries have historically been amongst the very worst injuries to heal across multiple sports, and also Hockey unfortunately.
On a pure eye-test basis, Bear was in my opinion a more-or-less "serviceable, but slightly below-average" skater by NHL standards as a draft-eligible before the injury (above-average agility, good edges, subpar burst, balance issues, top speed was lacking a bit but he looked fast compared to junior players and his hockey IQ exacerbated that even more).
With some natural gains physically over time post-draft, and some technique refinements, pre-injury Bear definitely had the potential to end up as an overall "above-average" skater for the NHL once he was fully developed.
And that, combined with Bear's very high skill level, great IQ, and top-flight compete level meant that he was one of the very best players in this year's draft.
I personally had Bear #9 before the injury, and thought he definitely had first-line upside if he developed well.
Except that he then got injured, and a major asterisk had to be put on Bear's future potential as a result.
If a guy like Peyton Krebs went from "borderline-elite" skater pre-draft to "NHL-average" after having suffered a complete achilles tear. Then even if Carter Bear's injury is only a partial tear (again, we don't know how severe it was except that it wasn't complete) what does that mean for his skating ability going forward?
In my opinion, the partial achilles tear both takes major development time away from Bear AND reduces his skating ceiling. All of which means that Bear not only could accumulate development setbacks, but also fail to develop much skating-wise going forward and may top-up as only an "average-adjacent" skater.
And that may even be generous of an estimation given how crippling an achilles tear can be for a prospective NHLer.
The question then becomes at which point of the draft a team's scouting department thinks that Bear's skillset, IQ, and compete level become too good to pass-up and offset the very real fact that Bear may end up average-ish speed-wise by NHL standards AND doesn't have nearly as much physical runway as other players in this draft, both elements that limit his ultimate upside in playoff hockey.
Speaking for myself only, because of the uncertainty I currently wouldn't have Bear in my own top-15. But I can definitely understand why other people would have Bear there, and even much higher than I currently do.
I jus think that, given the fact that we already have a couple of average-ish skaters (Suzuki, Caufield, Demidov, Slafkovsky all have pretty average speed for the NHL) in our top-6 and need more size too (which Bear brings neither of), that we might elect to trade-up for another type of player rather than for Bear.
For example, if a guy like Eklund (McQueen, Smith, and more) fell a bit, then I'd be much more comfortable trading-up to select him.
Though Eklund is also a small-ish player (though he doesn't at all play like it), he has many of the same traits as Carter Bear (a non-stop motor, high skill-level, IQ) but also possesses a very good skating ability which means Eklund has both higher upside AND floor compared to Carter Bear.
