Post-Draft Habs’ Top Prospects By Position

By JD Lagrange – Since Marc Bergevin hit the reset button in the summer of 2018 and start accumulating draft picks, the Canadiens have done a good job at replenishing the once empty cupboards of prospects. Although twice, the team has selected third overall, both picks have not panned out for Montreal.

Alex Galchenuyk, in spite of a 30-goals season, decided to listen to his father more than the Habs’ coaching staff and has since been bouncing around the NHL. Jesperi Kotkaniemi left by signing an offer-sheet with Carolina and up until now, he has not had any success either. To be fair, at least, Bergevin turned Galchenyuk into Max Domi, who then became Josh Anderson, a huge improvement.

Since then, the duo of Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes have continued along the lines of what their predecessor had started. They traded valuable veterans into young players, prospects and picks and with the team ending the season dead last and a little bit of lottery luck, they got to select first overall at the last NHL Draft.

In came Juraj Slafkovsky and, before him, Emil Heineman and Justin Barron as well as a couple of first round picks. In two consecutive transactions at the Draft, Hughes also traded 22 year-old Alexander Romanov and acquired 21 year-old Kirby Dach. Because of the work of both management groups, the Canadiens’ depth chart is in better shape than it’s been for decades.

So here are the top prospects as it stands today. As it is difficult to sort them in order, I have placed them by position. I have included the points per game column as a reference, but Canadiens’ fans are knowledgeable enough to understand that many factors, such as the league they play in, their age, and the team they play on will all be affecting that ratio. So it’s not the ultimate factor in determining the quality of a prospect.

Forwards

NAME	AGE	LEAGUE	GP	G	A	PTS	PTS/GP
Juraj Slafkovsky	18	U20 SM-sarja	11	6	12	18	1.64
		Liiga	31	5	5	10	0.32
Filip Mesar	18	Slovakia	37	8	8	16	0.43
Sean Farrell	20	NCAA	24	10	18	28	1.17
Joshua Roy	19	QMJHL	66	51	68	119	1.80
Jesse Ylönen	22	AHL	52	14	22	36	0.69
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard	23	AHL	69	21	35	56	0.81
Owen Beck	18	OHL	68	21	30	51	0.75
Jan Mysak	20	OHL	61	34	30	64	1.05
Riley Kidney	19	QMJHL	66	30	70	100	1.52
Oliver Kapanen	19	Kalpa U20	11	7	8	15	1.36
Emil Heineman	20	SHL	38	11	5	16	0.42
Vinzenz Rohrer	17	OHL	64	25	23	48	0.75
Joël Teasdale	23	AHL	44	15	13	28	0.64
Luke Tuch	20	NCAA	26	6	4	10	0.39

Defensemen

NAME	AGE	LEAGUE	GP	G	A	PTS	PTS/GP
Kaiden Guhle	20	WHL	42	7	33	40	0.95
Logan Mailloux	19	OHL	12	3	6	9	0.75
Justin Barron	20	AHL	43	5	15	20	0.47
Jayden Struble	20	NCAA	34	3	11	14	0.41
Jordan Harris	22	NCAA	39	5	15	20	0.51
Mattias Norlinder	22	SHL	21	0	2	2	0.10
Arber Xhekaj	21	OHL	51	12	22	34	0.67
Lane Hudson	18	USHL	27	6	26	32	1.19
		USDP	60	10	53	63	1.05
William Trudeau	19	QMJHL	68	8	36	44	0.65

Goaltenders

NAME	AGE	LEAGUE	GP	GAA	Sv%
Cayden Primeau	22	AHL	33	2.94	.909
Jakub Dobes	21	NCAA	35	2.26	.934
Frederik Dichow	21	HockeyAllsvenskan	28	2.27	.930
Joe Vrbetic	19	OHL	45	2.87	.906

As you can see, the sheer number of quality prospects is there. Some will argue that there is a lack of top-end prospects who can be dominant players in the NHL. To those I will reply that Martin St-Louis was never drafted. Alex Burrows spent time in the ECHL. Alexandre Daigle and Nail Yakupov were selected first overall. Fact is that you never know what a young player’s development will be like. What we know is that the Canadiens are now putting an emphasis on developing young players and only time will tell how far these young men will go.

More reading…

• Martin St-Louis’ 2022-23 Projects by JD Lagrange
• A Tale of Two Extremes by Bob Trask
• Huberdeau Deal Supports Habs Not Waiting On Dubois by JD Lagrange