Michigan Hockey: 3 players projected to get drafted in top 10 in 2021

Ranked #4: Matty Beniers – C

Another stud this year was Matty Beniers, the centerman from Boston, Massachusetts. The 6-foot-1, 174-pound Wolverines freshman performed at a point-per-game clip in his first season of Big Ten hockey. He ranks as the fourth player to be selected in this summer’s 2021 NHL Entry Draft.

Beniers logged 24 games for the Wolverines in 2020-21, where he scored ten goals and added fourteen assists for 24 points while maintaining a plus-21 rating on the season as well. He would finish third in points trailing Kent Johnson who we will get to in just a minute.

Beniers, along with two other Wolverines, would also step away from Michigan Hockey to play for the United States in the 2020 IIHF World Junior Championships, where he played in seven games, logging one goal and two assists for three points.

Beniers excels in many facets of the game and he showed that pretty early during his time in a Wolverines uniform this season. As a freshman he appeared comfortable and did a good job of making things happen, finding ways to create scoring chances and be an exceptional asset to the Wolverines.

He is a left-handed shooting center who excels in the offensive zone, making things happen by way of his own stick quite often. A quick-moving forward who reads the play well for a youngster should excel as he moves through levels on his path to the NHL.

He projects as a top-five selection currently and could very well move up as more reports are released and some analysts could very well move Beniers up the draft board based on the season he pieced together.