Were The Canadiens Draft Losers?
· Yahoo Sports
Over the weekend at the NHL Draft, the Montreal Canadiens put emphasis on drafting players of a certain type, big bodies who like to play with grit and physicality. While that’s a big need for the organization, not everyone appreciated what the Habs tried to do. In his latest article analyzing the draft, Scott Wheeler from The Athletic identifies the Tricolore as one of the three teams he dubbed losers of the event.
The journalist notes that he understands the Habs’ desire to add more size and athleticism, but he feels they might have put too much emphasis on it and “chased it a little”. In other words, he feels the players the team selected were taken too high. He labels Gleb Pugachyov as a third-line winger, Cooper Cleaves as an AHLer, Tim Runtso as a potential third-pairing blueliner, Parker Trottier as a fourth-line AHLer, and Brayden Klimpke as organizational depth. It certainly sounds like a harsh prognosis.
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If Wheeler didn’t appreciate the latest influx of Canadiens’ prospects, codirectors of scouting Nick Bobrov and Martin Lapointe were certainly pleased with their harvest when they spoke to the media after the draft was finally over on Saturday afternoon.
“With his size, he already played in the KHL, he’s already played against men, so I think he’ll be ready faster than others for sure, said Lapointe of first-round pick Pugachyov. This guy is a unicorn we love the way he plays, shift in, shift out. The details in his game, at his age is rare. So, to be playing in the KHL and blocking shots and diving to block shots, backchecking hard, finishing his checks on the forecheck, bringing pucks to the net. I mean, that’s what you wish for in a player. We feel, this guy was the guy that we needed, and he was there and I feel lucky to have him.-
The way Lapointe describes Pugachyov, he sounds like the kind of player who can do what Juraj Slafkovsky does, but with more aggression and enthusiasm. He has accepted his role and knows that’s what’s expected of him while it took Martin St-Louis years to make Slafkovsky understand that the Canadiens needed him to get involved physically in puck battles and retrieval on the forecheck.
When the first-round pick spoke to the media, he said through his translator, Sam Shore, that he had known both Ivan Demidov and Alexander Zharovsky for years, adding he was excited to form the “Russian Three” with them, so to speak. It’s true that they could form quite an impressive line with a gritty winger in Pugachyov, a more skillful one in Zharovsky and a star in the making in Demidov, but someone would have to play center. Even if they weren’t forming a line, though, it would certainly feel good for them to have so many Russians on the team. Right-shot defenseman Bogdan Konyushkov could also join the fold eventually.
Bobrov and Lapointe also seemed rather hopeful that their first-round pick could potentially arrive early on this side of the pond:
“Yes, there are two years left, but you know, his agent [Dan Milstein] is very good at negotiating, said Bobrov. So we’ll leave it to Dan to do it. It’s flexible enough so that a lot of different situations can unfold. He knows what he is doing, and it’s all about making sure the kid is ready to come over at the right time. It’s a big change, so we have to be mindful of timing on a number of different fronts.”-
As for the fact that the team made a conscious effort to get bigger and they're picking a lot of blueliners, Bobrov explained:
Well, the defensemen are always in demand, and we always talk about different buckets and which ones are full and which ones are becoming empty. So we know where the best fishing holes are, as we say, and it’s different draft to draft […] in this case, it just so happened that the defenders were the best players, you know, at particular spots, and obviously, you want to create more organizational depth in each position. Every organization needs that depth, and we happen to have pretty good depth right now; it never hurts to have a deeper pool. We felt that with each individual we addressed something. Timmy Runtso is more offensive, more flashy, I guess. Cooper Cleaves is more stay-at-home, mature, big, and defends, and Brayden Klimpke is a puck mover, an elite skater. So we felt those three at the right spots were the way to go, and you can never have enough ds.-
Fans will have an opportunity to see what this latest crop of prospects brings in the coming days, as the Canadiens’ development camp kicks off on June 30th with physical testing, followed by two days of on-ice sessions, including scrimmages on Thursday. As always, it will take place at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard, and those who wish to watch are welcome to do so. Bobrov and Lapointe appeared optimistic that their picks over the weekend would be able to attend. Was Wheeler right in calling the Canadiens draft losers? Fans will have an opportunity to make up their own minds in the coming days and years…
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