Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Montreal Canadiens Draft Preview

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First Round Position: 18th

Best Picks of last 3 Years:

Max Pacioretty (LW)- 1st Round 2007
Ryan Mcdonagh (D)-1st Round 2007
P.K. Subban (D)-2nd Round 2007
Danny Kristo (RW)-2nd Round 2008
Yannick Weber (D)-3rd Round 2007

Coming Down the Pipe - Montreal has some interesting potential in their prospect pool. Max Pacioretty saw action this year while Ryan McDonagh and Danny Kristo and P.K. Subban all suited up for the U.S. and Canada respectively at the WJC.Kristo actually played for his country twice helping the U.S. to win gold at the World Junior A Challenge. Yannick Weber could factor into the Habs blueline sooner rather than later after his 16 goals with Hamilton. He’s small at 5.10 but has 36 goals in his last 2 OHL/AHL seasons combined.

Draft Trends – Montreal has taken an American in the first round for the past 3 years.

Millard: Ryan Ellis - The small but skilled D-man gives the Habs a pure offensive blueliner that could one day make a nice top pairing with Ryan McDonaugh

Flaming: Simon Despres – In a summer with a lot of discontent amongst the fans it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Habs take a French-Canadian. The fact that Despres was once ranked as the best defenceman available in North America justifies the pick alone but Despres' Quebec roots kills two birds with one stone.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kristo is a 2nd round pick.

Anonymous said...

Wait... so not only do we pass up on taking a center with our first round pick AGAIN, but we use it to draft another defenseman which is easily the position which we have the most prospect depth at.

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I can uderstand picking Despres if Komisarek leaves but Ellis shouldn't even be an option. We would have Markov, Weber, Subban and Ellis on D. So who actually plays defense on this team and who plays on the PP?

IMO if we stay where we are it's between Leblanc and Holland.

Anonymous said...

why will mtl draft a defensemen again? we have great depth on the blueline (mcdonagh, subban, weber, carle ,fischer, and even our 3 russian d-man korneev, valentenko and emelin......we really need a forward (center please) Leblanc, kreider, shore, Ferraro, Joseffson ect

Dean Millard said...

Well most teams draft the best player available in the first round, no matter what kind of depth they have. We haven't talked to anyone from Montreal lately but are hoping to have someone on this Tuesday, so maybe we'll be able to shed some light on the situation then.