The Montreal Canadiens have announced that they have hired a couple of new men to help with their hockey operations. Since the firing of Marc Bergevin and Trevor Timmins at the end of November, Martin Lapointe has been filling the role of Director of Amateur Scouting. We didn’t know if it was by interim or permanent but it seems like we got our answer today with the team’s announcement.
The team also announced that while Lapointe will remain in his functions of Director of Player Personnel, but added the title of Co-Director of Amateur Scouting to his functions. He will likely focus solely on North America in his role. The team has hired former Boston Bruins and New York Rangers’ Director of European Scouting Nick Bobrov as Co-Director of Amateur Scouting. He will likely oversea the European side of the department.
For one, Vincent Lecavalier didn’t use the Canadiens to negotiate a better contract in Tampa Bay this time around, as he joins the organisation as a Special Consultant to Hockey Operations. This likely means that he will be able to continue to be paid tax-free money, suntanning in Tampa.
Bobrov’s track record
Some people are thrilled of the addition of Bobrov. Others, not so much. This prompted me to do a little bit of research, as I often like to do, in order to form a more educated opinion on the Canadiens’ management new addition. For “misses“, to be fair, I have focussed solely on the top three rounds of the Draft as anything beyond is a flip of the coin toss no matter the origin of the picks. The “hits” are from any round.
Boston Bruins (2001-2006)
| PICK | ROUND/OVERALL | YEAR | NHL GP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HITS | David Krejci | 2nd Rd (63) | 2004 | 962 |
| Vladimir Sobotka | 4th Rd (106) | 2005 | 548 | |
| MISSES | Vladislav Yevseyev | 2nd Rd (56) | 2002 | 0 |
| Hannu Toivonen | 1st Rd (29) | 2002 | 61 | |
| Mikko Lehtonen | 3rd Rd (83) | 2005 | 2 | |
| Petr Kalus | 2nd Rd (39) | 2005 | 11 | |
| Yuri Alexandrov | 2nd (37) | 2006 | 0 |
New York Rangers (2015-2021)
This is a lot more recent and it’s definitely more difficult to assess hits and misses. So take those with a grain of salt, of course, as it can still change. For that reason, I’ve also added a section for “to be determined (TBD)“.
| PICK | ROUND/OVERALL | YEAR | NHL GP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HITS | Filip Chytil | 1st Rd (21) | 2017 | 226 |
| Kaapo Kakko | 1st Rd (2) | 2019 | 151 | |
| MISSES | Robin Kovacs | 3rd Rd (62) | 2015 | 0 |
| Aleksi Saarela | 3rd Rd (89) | 2015 | 9 | |
| Lias Andersson | 1st Rd (7) | 2017 | 102 | |
| TBD | Vitali Kravtsov | 1st Rd (9) | 2018 | 20 |
| Nils Lundkvist | 1st Rd (28) | 2018 | 25 | |
| Olof Lindbom | 2nd Rd (39) | 2018 | 0 | |
| Jakob Ragnarsson | 3rd Rd (70) | 2018 | 0 | |
| Karl Henriksson | 2nd Rd (58) | 2019 | 0 | |
| Oliver Tarnstrom | 3rd Rd (92) | 2020 | 0 |
Conclusion
Obviously, you can draw your own conclusions with the list provided above. But from what I can see, Bobrov’s track record has nothing to write a book about. So far, he has uncovered one very good player in David Krejci, which the Bruins got in the second round. It’s pretty hard to give credit to anyone picking second overall as the Rangers did with Kakko but Chytil seems to be a pretty good player.
There are many others picked from 2018 to 2021 (six to be exact) who remain to be seen. Even if half of them turn into good players, I’m not so sure that it justifies the hiring of Bobrov. But hey, what do I know? I can only go with numbers as I’m not in the circle of professional hockey experts. Here’s hoping that the new management works out for the best for the Canadiens. So far, while early, there are more questions than answers.
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