By JD Lagrange – Admittedly, I am not a NHL Draft expert, far from there. In general, I choose to focus on Habs’ prospects when they’re closer to making it to the NHL. But with the Canadiens having the fifth overall pick, and the fact that I did pretty well a year ago (including the first overall pick), I decided to push my luck again. So I figured that I would see how I match up with the Draft experts around the NHL by publishing my very own Final and Only NHL Draft Rankings. In a few months or a few years, we can all laugh or cry about it together.
This time, however, I stopped at the top-20 as I have a feeling that the Canadiens will not be using the Florida Panthers’ pick to draft, but rather use it as an asset in a bigger trade, either to move up from number five, or for Pierre-Luc Dubois or another similar player… as Kent Hughes did almost a year ago when acquiring Kirby Dach.
The position, height and weight information is taken from Eliteprospects.com.
| RANK | PROSPECT | POSITION | HEIGHT | WEIGHT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connor Bedard | C/RW | 5’10” | 185 |
| 2 | Adam Fantilli | C | 6’2″ | 187 |
| 3 | Matvei Michkov | RW | 5’10” | 148 |
| 4 | Leo Carlsson | C/LW | 6’3″ | 194 |
| 5 | Will Smith | C | 6’0″ | 172 |
| 6 | Zach Benson | C/LW | 5’10” | 159 |
| 7 | Andrew Cristall | LW | 5’10” | 165 |
| 8 | Eduard Sale | RW | 6’1″ | 168 |
| 9 | Ryan Leonard | C | 5’11” | 181 |
| 10 | Oliver Moore | C | 5’11” | 176 |
| 11 | Colby Barlow | LW | 6’1″ | 187 |
| 12 | Dalibor Dvorsky | C/RW | 6’1″ | 201 |
| 13 | Brayden Yager | C | 6’0″ | 165 |
| 14 | David Reinbacher | D | 6’2″ | 187 |
| 15 | Axel Sandin Pellikka | D | 5’11” | 181 |
| 16 | Dmitri Simashev | D | 6’4″ | 201 |
| 17 | Nate Danielson | C | 6’1″ | 185 |
| 18 | Gabe Perreault | RW | 5’11” | 165 |
| 19 | Samuel Honzek | C | 6’4″ | 185 |
| 20 | Calum Ritchie | C | 6’2″ | 187 |
Don’t be surprised if Michkov drops drastically from this ranking and in spite of the nonsense displayed by some fans on social media, there is absolutely no guarantee that the Canadiens would select him if he slides to them at number five. As we have recently covered in details, there are just too many red flags and Montreal must thread very carefully with this one.
What does it look like to the self-proclaimed Draft experts out there on social media? Who knows. But the Canadiens will have a good player once again this year. Whether or not that player will be ready to step into the line-up comes October remains to be seen…