BROSSARD, Que. — The draft begins in Montreal this Thursday, with the Canadiens currently holding the first pick, nine more selections to be made before the fifth round, four picks between rounds 5 and 7, as well as a roster of players, future picks and move prospects.
With all that in mind, general manager Kent Hughes is eyeing his best opportunity to set his long-term plan for the organization in motion.
He approaches it with eyes and mind wide open.
In his meeting with the media on Monday, the GM said all the things you would expect to hear from someone in his position. He began with, “If the draft was tonight, we’d go first overall,” but also refused to give up on the possibility of trading the pick if the right offer came along.
Hughes said there’s just as much chance of the Canadiens getting the second overall pick in the draft as him trading the first and not owning a top-3 pick at all, that right now he has a better chance of stringing together some of Montreal’s other picks in the draft to move up from 26th overall than there is in trading the first pick, and that the Canadiens are open to anything and not locked into any specific plan. It all sounded pretty generic.
But it was also real.
The potential for the Canadiens to make big, bold moves — and take much more of the spotlight already on them as the hosts with the top pick — is huge, and Hughes spoke like someone who would be all for it.
Draft selection
Round 1: (1st, 26th), Round 2: (33rd, 62nd), Round 3: (66th, 75th, 92nd) Round 4: (98th, 127th, 128th), Round 5: (130th), Round 6: ( 162nd), Round 7 (194th, 216th)
Potential Round 1 targets
There was no common ground in Hughes’ response to a question about which players the Canadiens were considering using the top pick. He could have declined to answer, as most would have done, but confirmed it would be one of Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkowski or Logan Cooley.
Wright is a cerebral center. He has been the consensus pick for analysts ever since entering the OHL as one of the few 15-year-old players in CHL history to receive exceptional status. He arrived with the Kingston Frontenacs under immense pressure and flourished with 39 goals and 66 points in his first 58 games.
Then the world as we knew it stopped spinning due to the pandemic, forcing Wright and most CHL players to be sidelined for an entire season.
If the 6-foot, 191-pounder won detractors this season, which saw him produce 32 goals and 94 points in 63 regular-season games and three goals and 11 points in 11 playoff games, concern about what was lost in developments during the 2020-21 COVID-affected season played a significant role.
But another reason Wright’s position at the top of most recruiting committees became precarious was that both Slafkowski and Cooley closed the gap in their own ways.
Slafkowski, who stands 6-foot-4, 218 pounds and plays like it, may not be up against the best players in the world at the Beijing Olympics in February, but he dominated against the best men available and led the tournament in goals ( 7 ) and points (7). He then represented Slovakia at the World Cup in May and recorded three goals and nine points in eight games.
These were performances that lent credence to the idea that Slafkowski appears to be the most physically prepared player in this draft to enter the NHL and make an immediate impact. Had they not been offset by an underwhelming five-goal, 10-point season in Finland’s top men’s league, he likely would have overtaken Wright as the consensus pick.
But will anyone really be surprised to see Cooley surpass both players on Thursday night?
Scouts we reached out to suggest he has the highest offensive ceiling of the three players, and he showed it this season with 40 goals and 111 points in 75 games played with the United States National Development Team.
“I think Cooley has the upside to be a top scoring center and I see him as a player like (New York Islanders star) Matt Barzal,” said a top NHL executive we spoke with two weeks ago.
But the same executive wondered if some habits might prevent Cooley from taking advantage of the opportunity to prove he can hit that edge, and more people would rank Cooley as the most likely player to go first if they disagreed.
Still, there seems to be little doubt about the quality of all three players the Canadiens are considering.
As special adviser to Hughes — and former first overall pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning — Vincent Lecavalier said Monday, “They’re three different players, but they’re three very, very good players.”
Determining which one is best for the Canadians will be based on a lot more than how they’ve performed since September.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to predict a player’s future — where he is now and what he can become as an NHL player,” Hughes said. “That’s really how our grades are done. It’s not to find out who is the best player at 18, but who can be the best at 22, 23, 24, so they can help us get to the path we’re on to become a team , capable of winning year after year.”
Hughes said it was a decision that was made with a particular emphasis on character because, as he said, “It’s probably almost harder to be the first overall pick in Montreal” and “We’re trying to gauge their ability to handle that kind of pressure on a constant basis.”
Canadians will take as much time as they need before finalizing their choice.
“It is not a matter of hesitation; it’s about making sure we do all our homework,” Hughes said when pressed about not being decided just three days into the draft. “We want to talk to all our scouts. We start having meetings tonight and we want them all to have a voice. We certainly have some scouts in Europe who may not have seen Ontario games in person. But these days, with (intelligence technology) and (analytics provider) Sportlogiq, it makes it easier for us to do our homework.”
Last year’s top pick: Logan Mailloux
The 6-foot-3, 208-pound right-handed defenseman, who was controversially taken 31st overall by the Canadiens last summer after opting out of the draft because he was charged with a felony in Sweden, has played just 12 games for the OHL’s London Knights in the past season.
Mailloux served a first-half suspension and debuted in January with three goals and nine points before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury.
He has since spent some time in Montreal rehabbing from surgery and getting to know the Canadiens front office. He is expected to take part in the team’s development camp next week, although a contract with the club is anything but imminent.
“It is not our intention to negotiate with him,” Hughes said on May 31. “Logan is still being evaluated – less as a player and much more as a person and a member of the community – and we will watch him do everything he promised to do to be a better person and to be more -a good teammate and member of the London community.
Organizational needs
It would be much easier for you to list what Canadians don’t need. After last place in the NHL, it’s hard to even prioritize what they need.
They’ve lacked elite center fielders for the better part of three decades, and it’s debatable whether they’d get one in Wright or Cooley. It’s also unlikely to be available to them via trade unless a team calls with a Godfather offer for the first pick this week.
Anyone willing to give up a power/scoring wing? Because the Canadiens probably won’t get one if they don’t pick Slavkowski.
That might not seem like a big deal to some, seeing as Josh Anderson signed with Montreal for six more seasons and Cole Coffield oozing with star potential, but let’s assume the Canadiens don’t have that big of a need for such a player , would be completely inaccurate.
If you’re making a list of Montreal’s top prospects, it’s going to start with some quality defensemen.
But it’s too hard to assume any of them will become a star, and the Canadiens don’t have one on their current roster that fits the bill either. They are also looking to trade their best defender in Jeff Petry.
So that need could get a lot bigger by the end of this week.
Oh, and here’s what’s happening on the web.
Cayden Primeau and Jakub Dobes are prospects who have shown they have the potential to one day be starting goaltenders in the NHL, but that day isn’t necessarily right around the corner, and the Canadiens head into the draft not knowing if the superstar under contract to take their network, will actually be in front of it ever again.
As Hughes said Monday, when there is news about Carey Price’s health and future, he will call a special press conference to exclusively cover that topic.
In the meantime, with so many picks at his disposal for Friday’s portion of the draft, he may want to start stocking the Canadiens’ locker with goaltenders.
At the same time, it’s an organizational need — perhaps the most pressing — to create maximum flexibility to sign Alex Romanov, Cofield and others who can help on the line, and Hughes will focus much of his energy next week on that. Which means Petrie may not be the only member of the current roster to be located elsewhere.
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