Hello.
The order that won for me was ABCEFIZ.
Queue Order: A B G C H E D L F M I K Z
K is never checked because I gives led to Z.
The shortest path had 6 steps (7 total letters in path)
For fun, tried (up, down, left, right) and still got 6 steps (AGHLMKZ).
Even forgetting algorithms for a moment, and just counting for fun, there’s no way to get from A -> Z faster than in 6 steps because we do not consider diagonal movement.