By JD Lagrange – One of the most common mistakes we read on social media is fans (and some media members) wanting the team to draft based on today’s needs. For example, this year’s edition of the Canadiens has plenty of left-handed defensemen and few quality right-handed shooters at that position. So fans automatically feel like the team must draft some right-handed defensemen, right? Wrong.
But why? Because unless a player is drafted very early on, it is very unlikely that he will jump into the lineup at 18 and be able to have an immediate impact. This is particularly true when it comes to defensemen and goaltenders, where the responsibility is magnified at the NHL level.
So what teams have to do entering the Draft, aside of course from drafting the best player available, is two-folds:
1- Future needs: the scouting staff and General Manager must look at potential needs three or four years down the road. That’s easier said than done, granted, as no one can predict the future. But that’s how successful teams show foresight, addressing needs that aren’t quite there yet.
2- Current needs: We do see a lot of that happening at the Draft each year. Teams trading away draft picks, prospects, and even current players to acquire immediate help. Kent Hughes is no different, as we’ve witnessed when he completed a couple of trades which saw Alexander Romanov being traded away, and Kirby Dach joining the Habs.
Current and future needs
So what are the organizational needs for the Canadiens? Of course, teams will always seek natural goals’ scorers, that goes without saying. But there are other current and future needs this organization will attempt to plug in. For this exercise, I’ve decided to break it down by position.
Goaltending
This is both an immediate and a future need. Tomorrow, I will have a detailed article on how to address those needs. But for the sake of this article, the Canadiens need to address an immediate need as they currently have two backup goaltenders trying to fight for the starter’s job. Neither Jake Allen nor Samuel Montembeault (no matter what some claim) are quality starters at the NHL level. But Cayden Primeau may or may never be ready to be a starter. All they have in the system is goalies selected in the later round, so projects at best.
The Canadiens must trade for an established goaltender, and use one of their first three rounds picks to select a quality prospects as this player won’t be ready for at least four or five years down the road.
| PRO | PRO | UNSIGNED |
|---|---|---|
| Carey Price | Cayden Primeau | Frederik Dichow |
| Jake Allen | Jakub Dobes | Joe Vrbetic |
| Samuel Montembeault | Emmett Croteau |
Left defense
Because of the age of the Canadiens’ defensemen shooting from the left side, they don’t have an immediate need at that position. In fact, they have too many bodies on that side, both at the NHL level and in the prospect pool. That’s a position that could be used to address immediate needs at other positions, as Hughes did when he traded Romanov.
For future, the team doesn’t have to draft players at that position for the time being. But I would start looking at in a year from now.
| PRO | PRO | PRO | UNSIGNED |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Matheson | Arber Xhekaj | Mattias Norlinder | Lane Hutson |
| Joel Edmundson | Corey Schueneman (UFA) | William Trudeau | Adam Engström |
| Kaiden Guhle | Otto Leskinen (UFA) | Gianni Fairbrother | Petteri Nurmi |
| Jordan Harris | Nicolas Beaudin (RFA) | Jayden Struble |
Right defense
There is no doubt that with goaltending, this is the Canadiens’ biggest current need. When David Savard is your top right-handed defenseman, there’s a big issue and as well as Johnathan Kovacevic has done, he should be a sixth or seventh defenseman on a good team. Chris Wideman, I’m sorry to say, is a liability now. Thankfully, Justin Barron has taken positive strides and according to Player Development coach Francis Bouillon, Logan Mailloux is the current prospect the closest to being NHL ready. It is rather thin after that.
So in my opinion, the Canadiens need to keep an eye on a quality right-shooting defenseman through trade, but at the draft as well.
| PRO | PRO | UNSIGNED |
|---|---|---|
| David Savard | Chris Wideman | Dmitri Kostenko |
| Justin Barron | Logan Mailloux | Miguël Tourigny |
| Johnathan Kovacevic | Frédéric Allard | Daniil Sobolev |
Wing
As most wingers can play both sides (left or right), I have only created one category for wingers. There is a lot of depth on the wing, but you will see that there is very little top-end depth as in goals’ scoring depth. It’s the case at the NHL level, but as we’ve noticed this season in our feature “In The System“, some prospects have shown great potential. I am of the school where you cannot have enough quality depth at the forward position, both in the event of injuries but even healthy, to provide secondary scoring.
| PRO | PRO | PRO | UNSIGNED |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Caufield | Rem Pitlick | Xavier Simoneau | Rhett Pitlick |
| Josh Anderson | Rafaël Harvey-Pinard (RFA) | Denis Gurianov (RFA) | Luke Tuch |
| Brendan Gallagher | Jesse Ylönen (RFA) | Michael Pezzetta (RFA) | Cedrick Guindon |
| Mike Hoffman | Emil Heineman | Jonathan Drouin (UFA) | Jack Gorniak |
| Joel Armia | Joshua Roy | Alex Belzile (UFA) | Alexander Gordin |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | Filip Mesar | Anthony Richard (UFA) |
Center
The Canadiens are in better shape at center than they were a few years ago, no doubt. It’s the case both at the NHL level but also in the system as well. But quality depth up the middle is crucial to success as it’s easier to move a center to the wing than to try making a winger learn to play center. It seems inevitable that the Canadiens will be trying to acquire Pierre-Luc Dubois, which should make Christian Dvorak expandable in a trade, freeing up his $4.45 million cap hit. That’s for the immediate need. This would give the Canadiens three young quality centers in Suzuki (23), Dubois (24) and Dach (22). Both Dubois and Dach can be as effective on the wing as well.
Sean Farrell, Owen Beck and Riley Kidney are top-end prospects already under contract. So yes, the Canadiens may consider drafting more centers since they can easily be moved to the wing later on in their development.
| PRO | PRO | UNSIGNED |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | Riley Kidney | Oliver Kapanen |
| Kirby Dach | Jan Mysak | Vinzenz Rohrer |
| Christian Dvorak | Owen Beck | Blake Biondi |
| Jake Evans | Mitchell Stephens (RFA) | Jared Davidson |
| Sean Farrell | Lucas Condotta (RFA) | Ty Smilanic |
| Jack Smith |
Keep in mind that since Marc Bergevin announced his “Reset” in the summer of 2018, the Canadiens have drafted about 50 players. Some of those prospects are already on the team, others are starting to make a push for a NHL job, while others, like Mailloux, Roy, Farrell, Beck, Kidney, Heineman and company are turning pro in North America.
Due to their poor performances the past two seasons, the Canadiens also hold another 11 picks at the upcoming NHL Draft. Remember that teams can only carry a maximum of 50 professional contracts so not all of those young men will be able to be kept in the prospect pool. So yes, some will have to either be let go by not offering them a contract, or being included in trades in a package to address the team’s immediate needs. That’s only one of the reasons why it makes sense to trade for Dubois instead of waiting, or to sacrifice assets to obtain help between the pipes.
It will be a very interesting summer, Habs’ fans. And it will all start on May 8th, when the NHL will be holding it’s Lottery for the upcoming Draft. Then, the date for the 2023 NHL Draft will be held on Wednesday, June 28th and Thursday, June 29th at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.