Prospect Info: [2024 - 5th] Ivan Motherbleeping Demidov (RW), SKA St. Petersburg (MHL)

[KevSkillz4]

Probably old news but my mind is still blown by how much the stars had to align for us to get Demidov. An important decision point was Anaheim. Rumour is they were deciding between two players before going with Sennecke. If the other player they were considering was Demidov, and they went with him, he isn’t a Hab today. If the other player was Lindstrom and they snabbed him. Then CLB likely would have traded the pick (probably to Chicago), who would have then took Demidov.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1806867040487002186

We got so damn lucky!

Yes, very very lucky.

Just drafting a player with potential to be a 90-100 pts type of player... at 5. That's a huge steal right there.

He was been my #2 all season long and I will not be surprised if he become the best player in this draft. Yes Celebrini is very very good and I really like him. But I don't think he is going to put 100 pts per season. Demidov, I believe he have the skillset to put that and he isn't bad at defensive zone aswell, not good like Celebrini, but not bad.

 

[Habnot]

Bergevin to me had 3 areas of his tenure.
1) First few years were good
2) Middle years were horrible
3) Last few years were OK. He really did try to rebuild but still ice a roster for the playoffs. Flawed but we do have assets from that. Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle, Romanov, etc. Just a little to late for him.

Hughes did not start from scratch but he certainly took advantage of it because his long game is better.

The last few years were by far his worst and we are still not over the lasting effects of some of the moves made after the Stanley Cup Final. If he didn't know Price and Weber were finsished,that alone was a fireable offence. If he knew - he should of started the started the rebuild. Instead he doesn't sign Danault, overpays for Dvorak, signs Hoffman, signs Savard.

Add to that he trades for Anderson in 2020 and resigns Gallagher in October 2020 (he was fired November 2021).

And the final cherry on top of the sundae was selecting Mailloux in 2021. The negative attention he brought to the organization and how he handled the fallout alone was a fireable offence.

 

[the valiant effort]

The “first few years” of Bergevin began with hiring Therrien. Bad first few years (and all years)!

 

[themilosh]

Don't want to make it a Bergevin hate/love or compare but it's interesting to look at and how that changes as time moves forward. After this last draft, the balance might have tipped the scales into Hughes acquired assets.

Demidov tips the scales for me.



Hughes:
* Slafkovsky
* Demidov
* Reinbacher
* Dach/Romanov Flip
* Hutson
* Newhook
* Fowler
* Beck
* Hage
* Engstrom
* Barron
* Koivu
* Mesar

And I'm happy for one to exile/trade any (prospect) especially from the MB era who does not buy in to our team philosophy.
Suzuki is hands down the perfect Captain. Thank God, we didn't pick up Krebbs as MB wanted..
As such:

Bergevin:
* Suzki : beautiful Captain
* Guhle: long learning curve, certainly capable of being a top pair, but if he feels he's worth more than $6M x 8 (with the "A") then he should be traded.
* Caufield: i said the same with him last year, either he signs long term lower than Suzuki or he should be moved. He has, so he is apart of the core.
* Lehkonen: total whatever... nice middle 6 player, reality is any team can buy him (as a player) for a B+ prospect and a 2nd rounder... whatever.
* Romanov: toral whatever... good weight ratio, nice hitting, fairly good defensive zone control, good pivot speed... 2nd pair on a Cup Team.
* Primeau: as whatever as whatever is.
* Mailloux: lucky pick (desperate times, for a management group that did nothing), prolly would have gone around #15 without the baggage (like Guhle).. 2nd pairing top out.
* Roy: hi IQ player with limited physical capabilities.. at best middle 6.
* Xhekaj: way overrated, non drafted signee.. great for him, but he should be dealt asap as his value is going to dwindle.
* Kapanen: might actially turn into goid value.

The MB years were brutal

 

[ViD]

He is so good to make such hard long passes tape to tape from his backhand and this is rare even in the NHL.

The Panarin special

 

[The Last Red]

He could have easily passed on him like the teams immediately before him as the following 3 picks of Newhhook , Krebs and Harley were all very highly coveted as well.

Yup, he could have passed on him too. In the Habs “documentary” about the pick he specifically says to the scouts “take the goal scorer” when the Habs were on the clock. Harley does have top pairing D written all over him, however. Krebs is a bust.

 

[themilosh]

The “first few years” of Bergevin began with hiring Therrien. Bad first few years (and all years)!

Anything Therrien touches requires complete demolition and rebuilding from scratch. .imagine you were a high school drop out, with zero business experience, zero understanding of cap management, zero understanding of depth/drafting and roster building. A little experience as an asst. GM and experience as an NHL fringe defender.
And your first hire is toenails Therrien. Wow.

 

[Tyson]

Anything Therrien touches requires complete demolition and rebuilding from scratch. .imagine you were a high school drop out, with zero business experience, zero understanding of cap management, zero understanding of depth/drafting and roster building. A little experience as an asst. GM and experience as an NHL fringe defender.
And your first hire is toenails Therrien. Wow.

Nepotism 101...Bergevin wrote the book on it

 

[jrom]

Probably old news but my mind is still blown by how much the stars had to align for us to get Demidov. An important decision point was Anaheim. Rumour is they were deciding between two players before going with Sennecke. If the other player they were considering was Demidov, and they went with him, he isn’t a Hab today. If the other player was Lindstrom and they snabbed him. Then CLB likely would have traded the pick (probably to Chicago), who would have then took Demidov.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1806867040487002186

We got so damn lucky!

Feels like we won the 2nd OA lottery

 

[MTL Dirty Birdy]

When the smoke clears and David Reinbacher is a 23 minute per night complete Dman we will see why he was picked.
I saw some really good things in the 11 AHL games that he played.

I remember watching him in his draft year WJC… although Austria was not good, he stood out big time against the best in tourney. Looked like a man amongst boys

 

[Andrei79]

Feels like we won the 2nd OA lottery

This is essentially what happened and more than makes up for passing Michkov. Suddenly, the Reinbacher pick makes even more sense and there's a nice variety in the prospect pool. We're seeing things happen within the franchise that we've never seen before.

 

[DAChampion]

When the Habs picked Reinbacher, a lot of naysayers on this board said it was a bad strategic decision because the 2024 draft was obviously going to be too heavy with elite defenders.

That was a common take on here.

It stands out as a particularly dim one, as well as a particularly refuted one.

 

[HabbyGuy]

When the Habs picked Reinbacher, a lot of naysayers on this board said it was a bad strategic decision because the 2024 draft was obviously going to be too heavy with elite defenders.

That was a common take on here.

It stands out as a particularly dim one, as well as a particularly refuted one.

Dude 5 out of the first 6 picks were forwards, we are extremely lucky to have landed a top flight forward in a heavy laden D draft.

The take was fine. It made sense to go forward last year and D this. It's incredible how fortunate we are that he dropped to us, and how great it looks now. It was a good bet the only way we'd be getting him was with a top 2 lottery pick.

The hockey gods have finally smiled on us again.

 

[DAChampion]

Dude 5 out of the first 6 picks were forwards, we are extremely lucky to have landed a top flight forward in a heavy laden D draft.

The take was fine. It made sense to go forward last year and D this. It's incredible how fortunate we are that he dropped to us, and how great it looks now. It was a good bet the only way we'd be getting him was with a top 2 lottery pick.

The hockey gods have finally smiled on us again.

You can't make precise assumptions as to what's going to be available in future drafts.

 

[HuGo Burner Acc]

The last few years were by far his worst and we are still not over the lasting effects of some of the moves made after the Stanley Cup Final. If he didn't know Price and Weber were finsished,that alone was a fireable offence. If he knew - he should of started the started the rebuild. Instead he doesn't sign Danault, overpays for Dvorak, signs Hoffman, signs Savard.

Add to that he trades for Anderson in 2020 and resigns Gallagher in October 2020 (he was fired November 2021).

And the final cherry on top of the sundae was selecting Mailloux in 2021. The negative attention he brought to the organization and how he handled the fallout alone was a fireable offence.

Bergevins eras are as follows 2012-17, 2018-2020, 2021. Let's just get the last one out of the way. You gave a great synopsis on this one already so no need to delve. It was horrific. The retool that took place between 2018 summer and 2020 fall was actually pretty decent, MBs one saving grace. It set up a foundation for HuGo to start a rebuild with instead of doing it from scratch like other bottom feeders teams. The first era, I disagree with you @habshalifax. It was awful. He should've been fired after the 2017-18 season. Everyone knew it. But Geoff Molson gave him a second chance so he could begin his retool, which as stated above, was pretty good, but should've never happened under his tenure. When MB got the GM spot, he had a young Price, Subban, Pacioretty, and a 3rd OA pick. Instead of bolstering his team to become a real contender, he went total bargain bin and played it overly conservative under the notion of not sacrificing the future for the present. The most obvious example is the infamous 2017 TDL. Well that's great and all if all his drafts from 2012-2017 didn't absolutely suck.

I'm usually pretty temperate when it comes to MBs tenure but that's only because of his retooling years. What came before and afterwards if isolated, is probably the worst GMing in Habs history with context

 

[Seb]

And I'm happy for one to exile/trade any (prospect) especially from the MB era who does not buy in to our team philosophy.
Suzuki is hands down the perfect Captain. Thank God, we didn't pick up Krebbs as MB wanted..

I'm sorry I don't want to derail the thread with non-Demidov stuff, but I'm pretty sure it was Cody Glass he wanted.

 

[jaffy27]

I'm sorry I don't want to derail the thread with non-Demidov stuff, but I'm pretty sure it was Cody Glass he wanted.

Actually he wanted Gabe Vilardi in the LA trade that was suppose to happen. And I’ll go a little further, Vegas thought so highly of Glass that they wanted to keep him amd were comfortable including the “lesser “ Suzuki go….just shows how you really don’t know who’s gonna be better then who or Vegas would’ve gladly thrown in Glass.

He also wanted Panarin when he was UFA from Russia
He wanted Morgan Reilly over Galchenyuk.

There’s good and bad……

In other news…..Demidov

 

[DramaticGloveSave]

Such a treat to restudy Demidov now with the knowledge that he’s ours. The thing that really stands out is how great his tools are across the board. I’ve graded a lot of players over the years, and usually guys (talking first rounders here) have maybe one elite trait, and then are generally average elsewhere, or they are kind of above average across the board but lacking a standout trait.

Demidov on the other hand has what I’d classify as two elite traits (hands, vision) and then even his lesser traits are still good to great (good size, good to great skating and shot)… from a pure trait perspective he’s gotta be one of the highest graded guys I’ve seen enter the draft (Celebrini pretty similar this year).

That all said, it really is hard to project guys beyond who they share the ice with and the fact he was stuck in Russia makes stat projections difficult.

But to me though I’d feel pretty confident projecting him as a top line ppg winger and if things really come together he could be even better than that.

It’s honestly gonna be a long year lol can’t wait until he’s making his debut my god it will be electric.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Such a treat to restudy Demidov now with the knowledge that he’s ours. The thing that really stands out is how great his tools are across the board. I’ve graded a lot of players over the years, and usually guys (talking first rounders here) have maybe one elite trait, and then are generally average elsewhere, or they are kind of above average across the board but lacking a standout trait.

Demidov on the other hand has what I’d classify as two elite traits (hands, vision) and then even his lesser traits are still good to great (good size, good to great skating and shot)… from a pure trait perspective he’s gotta be one of the highest graded guys I’ve seen enter the draft (Celebrini pretty similar this year).

That all said, it really is hard to project guys beyond who they share the ice with and the fact he was stuck in Russia makes stat projections difficult.

But to me though I’d feel pretty confident projecting him as a top line ppg winger and if things really come together he could be even better than that.

It’s honestly gonna be a long year lol can’t wait until he’s making his debut my god it will be electric.

Consider how electrified the crowd was for Hutson. We are gonna go insane for Demidovs debut.

 

[Habs]

When the Habs picked Reinbacher, a lot of naysayers on this board said it was a bad strategic decision because the 2024 draft was obviously going to be too heavy with elite defenders.

That was a common take on here.

It stands out as a particularly dim one, as well as a particularly refuted one.

He hasn't done anything yet, 11 games.. let's not celebrate
People were labelling Kotkaniemi as a gem too

 

[Gustave]

It hasn’t really set in that he’s a Hab yet for me, but it’s starting to. I’ve been really deprived of any high end F since brief period Kovy and my idol Richer.

So it’s been a while

 

[DramaticGloveSave]

Consider how electrified the crowd was for Hutson. We are gonna go insane for Demidovs debut.

Probably the most hyped young Hab since Carey Price, and even Carey needed a year or two to generate that hype lol

 

[Redux91]

Consider how electrified the crowd was for Hutson. We are gonna go insane for Demidovs debut.

What's funny is
We waited *2* years for each of Caufield and Hutson
People don't quite realize just how fast Demidov will be here lol
Could very well get some April 2025 NHL games

 

[HabzSauce]

Anything Therrien touches requires complete demolition and rebuilding from scratch. .imagine you were a high school drop out, with zero business experience, zero understanding of cap management, zero understanding of depth/drafting and roster building. A little experience as an asst. GM and experience as an NHL fringe defender.
And your first hire is toenails Therrien. Wow.

I miss therrien lmao . Such a funny coach

There's a vid of Shaw on Wiese's podcast and he was saying how Therrien was a chain smoker. Whenever players got called into his office the whole room reeked of cigarettes.

He also used to smoke in arenas between intermissions and before/after games. The arenas constantly had to tell him to stop but he never listened and kept smoking whenever and wherever he wanted

 

[HabzSauce]

Bergevins eras are as follows 2012-17, 2018-2020, 2021. Let's just get the last one out of the way. You gave a great synopsis on this one already so no need to delve. It was horrific. The retool that took place between 2018 summer and 2020 fall was actually pretty decent, MBs one saving grace. It set up a foundation for HuGo to start a rebuild with instead of doing it from scratch like other bottom feeders teams. The first era, I disagree with you @habshalifax. It was awful. He should've been fired after the 2017-18 season. Everyone knew it. But Geoff Molson gave him a second chance so he could begin his retool, which as stated above, was pretty good, but should've never happened under his tenure. When MB got the GM spot, he had a young Price, Subban, Pacioretty, and a 3rd OA pick. Instead of bolstering his team to become a real contender, he went total bargain bin and played it overly conservative under the notion of not sacrificing the future for the present. The most obvious example is the infamous 2017 TDL. Well that's great and all if all his drafts from 2012-2017 didn't absolutely suck.

I'm usually pretty temperate when it comes to MBs tenure but that's only because of his retooling years. What came before and afterwards if isolated, is probably the worst GMing in Habs history with context

Bergervin made some good trades/pickups tho in the first era.

Vanek, weaver, danault, petry, Weise, byron...might be forgetting a few....all fantastic pickups