2024 Draft Recap: Montreal Canadiens
The Habs nipped draft-day criticism in the bud the second they snagged potential superstar Ivan Demidov at fifth overall.
NASHVILLE (The Draft Analyst) — Those familiar with my work know how I feel about draft report cards, even if I’ve been guilty of feeding that beast throughout the last 10 years. But my thoughts on the latest 2024 results will be more than broad brush strokes, as pinning the rose on 12 uninterrupted months of in-depth analysis from both the team and prospect standpoints requires more than the standard letter-grade marking scheme acting as the rubric. Rather, draft hauls will be evaluated and labeled on the following criteria, which I think are both fair and reasonable:
Strong — Any four of potential franchise player(s) drafted; needs addressed; first-round caliber picks in the second or third round; multiple home-run swings in later rounds; point-producing sleepers; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles (Ex. Buffalo’s 2022 draft)
Above-average - Any three of needs addressed; multiple home-run swings; acknowledged consensus favorites; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles; making more with less; first-round quality in the second or third round. (Ex. Carolina’s 2023 draft)
Average — A solid first- or second-round pick but mostly unspectacular thereafter (Ex. Colorado’s 2020 draft)
Below-average — Quantity over quality; over-drafting of higher-round picks/reaching; four picks or less with no first-round selection; obsession with overagers (Ex. New York Rangers’ 2018 draft or Ottawa’s drafts from 2021-2023)
Poor — Any three of unpopular reach in the first round, no picks in the first or second round; needs not addressed, obsession with overagers, leaving upside on the board for projects, or bucking popular consensus choices (Ex. Arizona’s 2020 draft)
Outlook
The trajectory of optimism that used to keep the city of Montreal abuzz for 12 months out of the year has been reduced to a single offseason in recent years, with most of the attention centering on the handful of weeks that precede and then follow the NHL draft. Surprising as that may sound, it’s been 31 years since the Canadiens won the franchise’s 23rd Stanley Cup, and multiple generations of their supporters have seen almost as many playoff-less springs than not. Experiencing the first three years of a rebuild will do that to any market, but the fact that it’s happening to the league’s most storied franchise is what makes it tougher to comprehend.
But the fallout from a third straight season of drafting in the top five, something the Canadiens hadn’t done in 52 years, was neither severe nor profound. At least not yet. Although the situation surrounding the franchise is far from optimal, there is in fact genuine support from the locals for the work being done by (get this), the front office, the coaching staff, and the players themselves. Still, there hasn’t been Stanley Cup Playoff hockey in Montreal since the Habs went to the final in the shortened 2021 season, and you have to wonder how much longer the fanbase will passively overlook the obvious and unchanged primary objective while being distracted by high draft picks and prospect development benchmarks in leagues outside the NHL.
The ability to find NHL-caliber talent in the draft has been a hallmark of Montreal’s scouting department, beginning with a multi-decade trend of hitting big on prospects from outside the first round; a reality that was most prevalent during the post-expansion and post-merger eras. Many of those picks were Hall-of-Famers (or close to it) and Stanley Cup winners, which boosted the Canadiens’ reputation for excellence on the ice and beyond.
Nonetheless, intermittent dry spells at the draft table since the turn of the century have contributed to Montreal’s eventual fall from grace, specifically with the many busted or suboptimal first-round picks from 2009 to 2015. The cause for the current rebuild phase cannot be pinned entirely on mistakes made at the draft, although a telling sign that both the front office and the scouting department were ripe for change was evident in the dual firings of general manager Marc Bergevin and assistant GM Trevor Timmins less than six months after the Habs played for the Cup in the summer of 2021 (Timmins ran Montreal for nearly two decades). In their places came long-time NHL executive Jeff Gorton to serve as team president and former player agent Kent Hughes as GM, and their additions included bringing in new sets of eyes on the scouting front, namely Nikolai Bobrov from the New York Rangers to share overall decision-making duties with chief scout Martin Lapointe.
The current Canadiens’ lineup is comprised mostly of home-grown talent acquired or drafted by either of Montreal’s last two front offices. But controversies in one form or another have surrounded most of Montreal’s recent first-round picks, beginning with 2021 first-rounder Logan Mailloux, who had criminal charges filed against him while playing in Sweden for defamation and offensive photography. The right-shot defender appears to have matured since and is an NHL candidate in 2024-25, but the public backlash at the time was severe enough that team owner Geoff Molson had to issue a public statement explaining the selection. The following year’s pick of power winger Juraj Slafkovsky at No. 1 overall had no such red flags affixed to his pre-draft resume, but a slow start to his 2022-23 campaign intensified calls for the young Slovak to be demoted before an ACL injury ended his season entirely. Thankfully, Slafkovsky returned to full health for opening night and delivered an impressive 20-goal, 50-point sophomore effort.
Hughes, to his credit, has been communicative with Montreal’s demanding beat since the day he took over, although he may be guilty of feeding that proverbial beast by seemingly holding more 30-minute press conferences and media engagements than any GM in the league. Some might say par for the course in Montreal, and perhaps the advent of the blogosphere, social media, and sensationalistic podcasters may have something to do with his candor. If Hughes feels making himself available for comment will help counteract the rumor mill in the league’s most demanding market and potentially thwart any deleterious effects on his players, then have it, especially if you’re a former agent whose ability to protect his clients comes naturally.
This ability was put to the test less than a year after the Slafkovsky pick, when 2023 top-five pick David Reinbacher was subjected to an online hate campaign after a vocal section of Montreal’s fanbase disapproved of the Habs’ decision to draft the Swiss defenseman over generational sniper Matvei Michkov, among others. In the 10 years I’ve been covering the draft, that was as ugly as it ever got.
Moving forward, the Canadiens as a franchise remains in a state of flux that is now headed toward a 10-year mark. Although their farm system is among the league’s best and Montreal’s current leadership at the front office, coaching, and player levels has worked in concert in guiding an improvement from 55 points in 2022 to 68 and 76 in 2023 and 2024, respectively, the fact remains that the Habs have been a bottom-five team in each of the last three seasons and the prospect of a fourth will remain a possibility until proven otherwise.
MORE: 2024 NHL Draft Report (PDF Download)
Traded picks
The Canadiens in Hughes’ first two drafts were not frequent pick-dealers in either direction, although they did move additional first-round selections in 2022 (to Chicago for center Kirby Dach) and again in 2023 (to Colorado along with a high second-rounder for center Alex Newhook). But the only additional deal to those two was moving Tampa’s 2022 fourth-rounder to the Vegas Golden Knights for their 2023 fourth, with each pick coincidentally landing at 128th overall (Vegas took goalie Cam Whitehead in 2022 and the Habs selected netminder Quentin Miller one year later). And for those keeping score at home (as you always should be when it comes to traded picks), the early-rounders Hughes shipped to the Blackhawks and the Avalanche became center Frank Nazar at 13th overall, and defenseman Mikhail Gulyayev (31st) and winger Ethan Gauthier (37th), respectively.
Hughes would be involved in the first round again in 2024, only this time it was to move up from 26th overall (via Winnipeg in the Sean Monahan deal) to the Los Angeles Kings’ perch at 21st to take smooth-skating center Michael Hage, a consensus first-rounder throughout the year. The price tag was the 57th pick from Round 2 (acquired from the Avalanche along with defense prospect Justin Barron for winger Artturi Lehkonen at the 2022 trade deadline) and his own seventh-rounder (198th overall). The Kings would take potential franchise goalie Carter George at 57 and energy winger James Reeder at 198.
As much as everyone should like Hage as a prospect, the extra pick Hughes used in the trade-up technically classifies as a slight overpayment since it required Montreal to pay with two picks instead of one, albeit a high seventh-rounder added to the late second, but the loss of an extra warm-bodied prospect nonetheless. The knee-jerk explanation from Montreal probably shifts to the Kings’ asking price as being the going rate to move up five spots in the first round, but keep in mind that both San Jose moving from 14 to 11 and Anaheim from 31 to 23 cost only a single late second-rounder. Why the Canadiens were willing to include a high seventh-round pick to secure Hage in the early 20s is for Hughes to answer, but both he and his scouts clearly loved the prospect and left nothing to chance. Again, the point isn’t to cry over an additional seventh-rounder as much as it is to point out who paid what to draft whom.
That would be it on the trade front in terms of draft-day wheeling and dealing from the Montreal table, but there are several administrative summaries to provide:
-The second-rounder (37th overall) Montreal traded to Arizona in the deal for Christian Dvorak in September 2021 moved a few more times before landing with the Winnipeg Jets, who used it on hard-shooting Swedish defenseman Alfons Freij, who was first-round quality throughout his draft season. Dvorak, 28, has played three injury-filled seasons with the Canadiens and is set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season. Also included in that infamous Dvorak trade was kind of a big deal — a late first-rounder in the 2022 draft that the Habs received from Carolina in the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer-sheet drama. The Coyotes then used that pick in a 2022 draft-day deal with San Jose to move up to 11th overall and take power center Conor Geekie, while the Sharks took skilled 200-foot pivot Filip Bystedt.
-Montreal nabbed BCHL center Logan Sawyer in the third round (78th overall) and jittery VHL winger Makar Khahin in the seventh (210th) with the two picks the Canadiens acquired from the Washington Capitals for oft-injured veteran defenseman Joel Edmundson on July 1, 2023. The Capitals previously secured the third-rounder from Minnesota at the 2023 trade deadline for center Marcus Johanssen.
-The Habs drafted aggressive overage winger Tyler Thorpe at 130th overall using San Jose’s early fifth-rounder that was acquired in a three-team deadline deal on March 3, 2023, in which Montreal received SHL defenseman Tony Sund and this pick but also 50 percent of veteran center Nick Bonino’s salary and the loss of older defense prospect Arvid Henriksson (187th overall in 2016).
-Lastly, the Canadiens drafted overage Skelleftea J20 Nationell defenseman Rasmus Bergqvist with the seventh-round pick (224th overall) they acquired from Edmonton as part of the deal that sent veteran defenseman Brett Kulak to the Oilers at the 2022 trade deadline. Also involved in that trade was minor-league defenseman William Lagesson (now with the Detroit Red Wings) and a 2022 second-round pick (57th overall) that Montreal used to draft blue-chip defense prospect and Chicago-area native Lane Hutson.
MORE: 2023-24 NHL Farm System Rankings and Assessments (Pre-Draft)
Draft picks
Assessment: Above Average
After being heavily criticized for leaving dynamic forwards on the board for Reinbacher at fifth overall in 2023, the Canadiens were never given a chance to overthink their option at the same slot one year later when Russian phenom Ivan Demidov wafted onto their laps at fifth overall. The powerful and explosive winger remains under contract with SKA of the KHL for at least one more season, but that year will quickly turn into months, those months into a single offseason, and before you know it, Demidov should be donning bleu, blanc, et rouge in time for the Opening Night ‘25.
In keeping with their usual behavior around this time of year, however, the Canadien beat rushed to compare Demidov and generational Russian phenom Matvei Michkov, who is now the property of the Philadelphia Flyers and the proud recipient of an entry-level contract to boot, which somewhat explains the noise originating from north of the border. Michkov also is a prolific scoring winger with a slight edge in seniority over Demidov but as already mentioned is one of the prospects Montreal passed over for Reinbacher 12 months earlier. Although both Demidov and Michkov were teammates in the SKA organization at several levels, this debate will not be settled until at least half a decade, when both players have multiple NHL seasons to their credit and their respective numbers can be compared.
Still, Demidov in the KHL for this upcoming season is all but certain to generate a heaping spoonful of hype from as early as his training camp (the KHL regular season begins in early September), which should indirectly ease some of the pressure placed on Reinbacher in what will be his first full North American season — in either the AHL with the Laval Rocket or with the Canadiens. Although the reasons to draft a potential all-star like Demidov go way beyond making Reinbacher’s development less of a story, it would be impossible to separate the two from one another considering they were back-to-back No. 5 picks for the NHL’s most storied franchise.
One question that will be more fun to entertain at this point than say, five or six years down the road, is where Demidov fits into Montreal’s future lineup, one that has already committed long-term to star forwards Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Juraj Slafkovsky. A scary thought for the Eastern Conference is the fact that Demidov was a better draft-year prospect than any of the three, but getting a coveted top-six slot and subsequent power-play time will require Demidov to overtake at least two to three belts of prospect-structured lines within Montreal’s pipeline, which already graduated many recent high-round draftees over the past 12-18 months to either Laval or the big club itself. Of course, this is a wonderful problem to have for any organization, let alone one that recorded its worst three-year stretch in over 80 years, and it’s not like Demidov doesn’t come equipped with the necessary arsenal to slice through any potential obstacle.
While taking Demidov was as easy a decision as it could have been for Montreal, its addition of Hage to an already jam-packed depth chart for centers is open for scrutiny, albeit on a nitpicking sort of level. But even naysayers would be advised to avoid a critique of the prospect himself, as the Toronto native was one of the USHL’s top pivots from wire to wire and would have been labeled a potential franchise center had a team with a thinner pipeline grabbed him in the same range as Montreal. Hage’s NCAA path coupled with the anticipated AHL arrivals from center prospects Owen Beck and Oliver Kapanen likely keeps the Canadiens’ latest first-round pivot from the show for several years, that is unless he destroys the college circuit sooner than later.
Speaking of centers, few, if anyone, were surprised to see Finnish two-way centerman Aatos Koivu taken by Montreal early in the third round. Not after his father Saku not only played for the Canadiens for 13 of his 18 NHL seasons but served as captain for 10 of them. But the younger Koivu was earmarked as an early Day 2 pick as early as last fall when he got off to a hot start with TPS U20 in Finland’s SM-Sarja and delivered an impressive showing at the November U19 Five Nations. Tough on the puck and skilled in tight areas, Koivu has a bright future ahead of him, with the biggest question surrounding it is whether he stays in Finland until he plays regularly for TPS Turku’s A-team or enters the lion’s den within the next year or two to compete with a dozen or more for regular minutes with Laval. Considering the Habs are limited in available contracts and already had one of the league’s deepest under-21 center pools before drafting him, it’s more likely Koivu will be in the SM-Liiga for both the near and distant future.
The selection of multi-purpose BCHL forward Logan Sawyer at 78th overall began what turned out to be an overdraft-happy sequence where nearly all of Montreal’s remaining seven picks were either selected at least two or three rounds higher than expected or took prospects who weren’t ranked by NHL Central Scouting. Sawyer himself is close to a complete prospect, however, although taking him 78th overall ahead of fellow BCHL’er Jack Pridham, high-powered wing Herman Traff, and potential 30-goal scorer Melvin Fernstrom was a decision open for criticism. Still, the future Providence Friar offers a solid all-around package that is highlighted by quick thinking and a dangerous shot-release combination. He can play physically and aggressively in all three zones and should become an even tougher matchup once Friars’ coach Nate Leaman is involved with Sawyer’s development. Reaching on this type of player shouldn’t sting because the skill level is high and he’s going to an NCAA program with an excellent track record.
Taking defensive defenseman Owen Protz early in the fourth round was clearly not the result of a best-player-available approach and should classify as a specific need at a specific position. All of Montreal’s left-shot defense prospects are puck movers in one form or another, leaving Protz as the standalone shutdown type. He has size, mobility, and toughness, but getting picked by the Canadiens probably had more to do with the fact that he was often partnered on defense with Canadiens prospect Daniil Sobolev for the OHL’s Brantford Bulldogs.
Size was a huge theme throughout the 2024 draft and the Canadiens certainly contributed to it. Overage winger Tyler Thorpe was one of the most improved players in the WHL and was a dedicated top-six option who did more than just set up in front or slam home centering feeds. He was an effective forechecker who threw his weight around and saved his best hockey for the second half. Considering he was drafted with the pick acquired in the aforementioned Arvid Henriksson/Tony Sund thingamajig, I’d say that ending up with a hard-working, under-20 power forward was worth it.
Recency bias crept into the fifth round when the Habs took Latvian goalie Mikus Vecvanags, who put on an admirable show at the under-18 world championships but was otherwise nondescript everywhere else. It’s highly doubtful the Canadiens were scouting him in Latvia across the various leagues he played in, and Lapointe only mentioned that tournament and the recommendation from goalie scout Vincent Riendeau when asked to describe the player. Vecvanags will play for Blainville-Boisbriand in the QMJHL this season, but this remains a questionable pick one year after the Habs drafted three backstops.
Center Ben Merrill was a good pick early in the sixth round and was taken where he was predicted to land. A physical dual-threat pivot who was a key cog for St. Sebastian’s in the Massachusetts prep circuit, Merrill will play his draft+1 with the powerful Penticton Vees in the BCHL before heading back to the Bay State to suit up for Harvard. He was the fourth center taken by Montreal, however, which could have been a reaction from several of the Habs’ older center prospects stalling in their post-draft development.
The overager Khanin (pronounced han-inn) pick is interesting only because he has one of the weirdest skating strides I’ve ever seen. It’s wide-based and his blade barely leaves the ice. Anyway, he plays with verve and is a smaller player who doesn’t back down from a challenge. Although Bobrov implied Khanin’s production against adults in the VHL as a likely selling point, the kid plays bigger than his 5-foot-11 frame and reveals a commendable effort off the puck, even in his own zone.
As for the Bergqvist pick, the question once again is why him and not others? Of all the kids in the J20, they settled on a good slot defender from the left side but one who doesn’t offer much else. Perhaps playing on a championship-winning J20 team helped, but nowhere nearly as impressive as Frans Haara, who was rewarded with SHL time by the league’s top team.
MORE: 2024 Draft: Round 1 Pick-by-Pick Analysis and Grades