CANADIENS’ UGLY HISTORY OF FIRST-ROUND PICKS
There has already been a ton of speculation ahead of Friday night’s NHL draft in Dallas on which player the Canadiens will select with the No. 3 overall pick or whether they might make a trade.
GM Marc Bergevin has said he is listening to offers for the pick the Canadiens won at the NHL Draft Lottery after finishing 28th in the overall NHL standings. When you look at the Canadiens’ track record over the years with their first-round picks, trading it away for a proven NHLER might not be a bad idea.
After Bergevin traded Alex Galchenyuk to the Arizona Coyotes June 15 in exchange for Max Domi, the Canadiens have now dealt away their first-round picks from four consecutive years: Louis Leblanc (2009), Jarred Tinordi (2010), Nathan Beaulieu (2011) and Galchenyuk (2012). Will Mike Mccarron, drafted in 2013 and still unable to earn a spot with the Canadiens, eventually make it five straight first-round picks traded away after not fulfilling expectations?
The Canadiens have also traded away two defencemen they selected in the first round — Ryan Mcdonagh (2007) and Mikhail Sergachev (2016) — who are now fulfilling expectations with other teams. Mcdonagh, drafted 12th overall in 2007 and then traded to the New York Rangers as part of the Scott Gomez deal, is a two-time NHL all-star who has played in 530 career games with the Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning. Sergachev,
drafted ninth overall and traded last summer for Jonathan Drouin, posted 9-31-40 totals as a 19-year-old rookie this season with the Lightning.
There are a lot of reasons why the Canadiens have missed the playoffs in two of the last three years and a lack of success drafting and/or developing their firstround picks is a big one.
Back in 1984, former Canadiens
GM Serge Savard hit a grand slam at the NHL draft when he selected Petr Svoboda (fifth overall) and Shayne Corson (eighth overall) in the first round, Stéphane Richer in the second round (29th overall) and Patrick Roy in the third round (51st overall). All four of them were part of a Stanley Cupwinning team two years later in Montreal and they all played
more than 1,000 games in the NHL.
Since then, the Canadiens’ first-round picks have been Jose Charbonneau and Tom Chorske (1985), Mark Pederson (1986), Andrew Cassels (1987), Eric Charron (1988), Lindsay Vallis (1989), Turner Stevenson (1990), Brent Bilodeau (1991), David Wilkie (1992), Saku Koivu (1993), Brad Brown (1994), Terry Ryan (1995), Matt Higgins (1996), Jason Ward (1997), Éric Chouinard (1998), Ron Hainsey and Marcel Hossa (2000), Mike Komisarek and Alexander Perezhogin (2001), Chris Higgins (2002), Andrei Kostitsyn (2003), Kyle Chipchura (2004), Carey Price (2005), David Fischer (2006), Mcdonagh and Max Pacioretty (2007), Leblanc (2009), Tinordi (2010), Beaulieu (2011), Galchenyuk (2012), Mccarron (2013), Nikita Scherbak (2014), Noah Juulsen (2015), Sergachev (2016) and Ryan Poehling (2017).
Some Canadiens fans might be crying after reading that list.
Between 1985 and 2010, the only three first-round picks who really had an impact with the Canadiens are Koivu, Price and Pacioretty, whose name is now involved in plenty of trade rumours.
Nine of the players selected in the first round during that 26-year span played less than 100 games in the NHL: Charbonneau (71), Vallis (one), Bilodeau (zero), Ryan (eight), Higgins (57), Chouinard (90), Fisher (zero), Leblanc (50) and Tinordi (53). Apart from Koivu and Pacioretty, only four of them scored more than 100 NHL goals: Chorske (115), Cassels (204), Higgins (165) and Kostitsyn (103). None of those four scored 100 goals in a Canadiens uniform. Kostitsyn scored 99 goals with Montreal before being traded, while Higgins had 84, Chorske 12 and Cassels eight before playing elsewhere.
Now the Canadiens’ firstround picks from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 have all been traded. Here’s what Canadiens management was saying about those four players — Leblanc, Tinordi, Beaulieu and Galchenyuk — after drafting them.
Trevor Timmins, then the scouting director and now assistant GM, after drafting Leblanc: “He participates in all the action. He’s a hard-nosed player, he likes to get his nose dirty in the corners and he’s a natural goal-scorer. He can play with high-end players. He’s got a lot of development left, but he’s got a great future ahead of him.”
Former Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier, after making a trade to move up to No. 22 from No. 27 to pick Tinordi: “We had identified some priority players and we felt them slipping away. He’s a big, strong defenceman who can skate and he has been the captain of his team.”
Gauthier, after drafting Beaulieu: “This year we believed that at 17th we would get a good player. We didn’t know which one we were going to get. There were a lot after the first seven or eight who were the same calibre and Mr. Beaulieu was one of them.”
Bergevin, after drafting Galchenyuk: “He’s a big centre … they don’t come by. When they do, you draft them because you can’t really trade for one because, for one, they’re not available. Down the middle, for me, has to be a strength and he fits the bill.”
It will be interesting to hear what Bergevin and/or Timmins have to say about the player they select No. 3 overall Friday night if they keep the pick. It will be more interesting to see what that player can do in the future.
The Canadiens’ track record with first-round picks speaks for itself.