HF Habs: 2024 NHL Draft Thread

[le_sean]

I've been saying the same thing - don't worry, I know that Celebrini, Lindstrom and Demidov would be their top 3. I figured they'd go Iginla above Catton, which as I've mentioned many times before is not a take I'm gonna push back on.

It is if all 4 of those guys are off the board that I think Catton would interest them more than Eiserman or Helenius. I think if they are missing out on those forwards and they're in the next tier, it would be Catton or Parekh, and really swing on the offensive upside rather than go with the rounded higher floor guy in Helenius.

I disagree. I think they go Eiserman and Helenius before Catton. Especially Helenius. They will love the pro style game against men. He’s basically Finnish Suzuki.

 

[skidcells]

I've been saying the same thing - don't worry, I know that Celebrini, Lindstrom and Demidov would be their top 3. I figured they'd go Iginla above Catton, which as I've mentioned many times before is not a take I'm gonna push back on.

It is if all 4 of those guys are off the board that I think Catton would interest them more than Eiserman or Helenius. I think if they are missing out on those forwards and they're in the next tier, it would be Catton or Parekh, and really swing on the offensive upside rather than go with the rounded higher floor guy in Helenius.

Forgot to mention they talked Eiserman briefly. They actually said that he would be in the mix because of the goal scoring despite all the other issues in his game. Found that interesting because based on record I would consider him basically no draft (re Michkov example)

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Caufield?
Slaf?
Fowler?
Beck maybe?

Carey Price
PK Subban

 

[Habs Icing]

I always find reaching for needs quite a scary thought. I think the defense side of our prospect pool is very loaded already and if you want by more pure "need", the Habs lack good right handed Winger and generally speaking very talented top 6 winger. I am certainly not expecting any miracle with Mesar to become that. I know we have Beck but he is not top 6, best case scenario is 3rd/4th line.

Anyway my point is that with the Jets pick I would be very aggressive and try everything in my power to trade up and a get that forward. A guy like MBN or Sennecke would be a perfect fit for us.

I agree with your take. We need top 6 forward talent. As for the lack of RDs, these are the ones in our system
Savard
Kovacevic
Barron
Mailloux
Reinbacher
Konyushkov.

We had Harris play the right side and Guhle has played there also.

Then we have long shots
Kostenko
Soboloev
Tournigny

That's 8 likely candidates. We'll discount the long shots. For a position where you need only three and where we used a 5 OA draft pick and two other 1st round picks to fill one or more of those positions, we need to pay attention to our top 6 forwards.

We have Suzuki, Slaf, CC, Dach and maybe Newhook. Maybe. There are no other guaranteed candidates in the system. Mesar is more of a question mark than Newhook. We do have our 1 st round pick this year. But that leaves us with only 4 top 6 forwards (Suz, CC, Slaf, Dach) and four other possibilities to fill the other two top 6 position. (Newhook, Mesar, our 1st rounder and maybe Roy.)

 

[waitin425]

I just pray we win Celebrini man. With him, Dach's return, Hutson and Mailloux's arrival....this team will be a serious contender as early as next year.

Trade Jets 1st ++ for Zegras

Celebrini - Suzuki - Slaf
Zegras - Dach - Caufield
Newhook - Dvorak - Armia/Roy
Anderson - Evans - Gally
Roy/Armia

Guhle - Matheson
Hutson - Savard
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble

Monty
Primeau

 

[Vachon23]

I just pray we win Celebrini man. With him, Dach's return, Hutson and Mailloux's arrival....this team will be a serious contender as early as next year.

Trade Jets 1st ++ for Zegras

Celebrini - Suzuki - Slaf
Zegras - Dach - Caufield
Newhook - Dvorak - Armia/Roy
Anderson - Evans - Gally
Roy/Armia

Guhle - Matheson
Hutson - Savard
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble

Monty
Primeau

I don’t think we’re contender next year with Celebrini but for me he’s the difference between us being a good team and a contending team in the futur

 

[WeThreeKings]

Forgot to mention they talked Eiserman briefly. They actually said that he would be in the mix because of the goal scoring despite all the other issues in his game. Found that interesting because based on record I would consider him basically no draft (re Michkov example)

Yeah he's the last one I would think. If you're gonna not like Catton, not sure why you would like Eiserman who has 10x the flaws with none if the progress.

 

[Nico Cauzuki]

I just pray we win Celebrini man. With him, Dach's return, Hutson and Mailloux's arrival....this team will be a serious contender as early as next year.

Trade Jets 1st ++ for Zegras

Celebrini - Suzuki - Slaf
Zegras - Dach - Caufield
Newhook - Dvorak - Armia/Roy
Anderson - Evans - Gally
Roy/Armia

Guhle - Matheson
Hutson - Savard
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble

Monty
Primeau

No chance we're contenders yet maybe make the playoffs but we would be a mess defensively

 

[le_sean]

I just pray we win Celebrini man. With him, Dach's return, Hutson and Mailloux's arrival....this team will be a serious contender as early as next year.

Trade Jets 1st ++ for Zegras

Celebrini - Suzuki - Slaf
Zegras - Dach - Caufield
Newhook - Dvorak - Armia/Roy
Anderson - Evans - Gally
Roy/Armia

Guhle - Matheson
Hutson - Savard
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble

Monty
Primeau

You have to go all in with Celebrini on an ELC. I would hope for a big trade for a good veteran top 4 defenceman. I’d also target Necas for size rather than Zegras (who I like)

 

[_vivelequebec_]

Carey Price
PK Subban

Mailloux

 

[Mrb1p]

Mailloux

not with Zellwegger and Stankoven on the board.

 

[Mrb1p]

I just pray we win Celebrini man. With him, Dach's return, Hutson and Mailloux's arrival....this team will be a serious contender as early as next year.

Trade Jets 1st ++ for Zegras

Celebrini - Suzuki - Slaf
Zegras - Dach - Caufield
Newhook - Dvorak - Armia/Roy
Anderson - Evans - Gally
Roy/Armia

Guhle - Matheson
Hutson - Savard
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble

Monty
Primeau

Zegras is a loser through and through.

With Celebrini the Habs dont need to add a top 6 forward.

Some combination of Suzuki, Slaf, Dach, Celebrini, Roy, Newhook and Cole is more than good enough for the top 6 and it insulates one injury to every single position. It's 4RW and 3C that needs upgrading, with size and defensive acumen.

Also 1RD.

Guhle-XX
Hutson-Savard
Matheson-Xhekaj
Struble


The problem is the candidate for that RD spot are near non-existant. Hronek is probably getting signed, Montour is probably getting signed, Matt Roy, Mayfield, Walker, DeMelo, Pesce, that's pretty much who it is. Maybe Marino if they feel Nemec can take that 2nd pair RD?

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Yeah he's the last one I would think. If you're gonna not like Catton, not sure why you would like Eiserman who has 10x the flaws with none if the progress.

It's the body and the fact that Catton, as much as we might love him, is slanted towards rush production at this point of the game. The guys in charge are Bobrov and Lapointe, no way they would use a high first rounder on someone who isn't built, lest the prospect be an outlier skillwise like Demidov......maybe.

I would have Catton top 6 at worst, ahead of Iginla and maybe even Lindstrom, take it or leave it. I'm sure the Habs have him closer to 20.

 

[Rapala]

I think Buium will end up as the best defensemen out of all of them. Kid has everything you want in a D. I do think Levshunov can have a Sergachev type career.

He was definitely Team USA's best defender IMO.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Yeah he's the last one I would think. If you're gonna not like Catton, not sure why you would like Eiserman who has 10x the flaws with none if the progress.

Eiserman has huge upside. He skates well, he's big and he's the best goalscorer in the draft. He's also two weeks away from having been eligible in the next draft.

I have no problem with anyone who takes Catton or even those who are skeptical of taking Eiserman. But it's not like there's no reason to take Eiserman here.

 

[Rapala]

Exactly what I’ve been saying. The draft record of high 1st rounders by this group (in their past too, not just with the Habs) shows a very obvious trend that doesn’t include players like Catton. You may disagree with that strategy, but it’s what it is.

It's obvious and comes directly from the mouth of one of the Prime Builders. The Habs want and believe in Balance and good on them.
Catton does not check as many boxes as some of the others it's as simple as that. I could actually see us taking Buium before him.
Because we can always use Matheson plus for a roster ready top 6 player.

 

[The Last Red]

Forgot to mention they talked Eiserman briefly. They actually said that he would be in the mix because of the goal scoring despite all the other issues in his game. Found that interesting because based on record I would consider him basically no draft (re Michkov example)

Which is totally asinine on your part, no offense, He's the best goal scorer in this draft by a country mile and already has NHL size, The rest can be taught.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Eiserman has huge upside. He skates well, he's big and he's the best goalscorer in the draft. He's also two weeks away from having been eligible in the next draft.

I have no problem with anyone who takes Catton or even those who are skeptical of taking Eiserman. But it's not like there's no reason to take Eiserman here.

But what I said was it makes no sense to dislike Catton for size and style reasons but like Eiserman. Eisermans warts are way bigger in that department than Catton.

 

[red devil]

 

[le_sean]

lol Connelly over Catton

Silayev over Demidov too. wtf is this

 

[WeThreeKings]

lol Connelly over Catton

Silayev over Demidov too. wtf is this

Yeah Connelly ranking isn't taking into account the off ice shit, for sure.

Silayev over Demidov is size and position humping

 

[The Great Weal]

Lindstrom's injuries makes me scared to draft him so that really only leaves Celebrini/Demidov as the forwards I'd be happy with. Otherwise, I'm totally fine with trading back.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Yeah Connelly ranking isn't taking into account the off ice shit, for sure.

Silayev over Demidov is size and position humping

I swear people looked at Silayev's stats 10 games in and based their ranking off of that. In no universe is he a better prospect than Demidov

 

[TT1]

BPA enough with these RD talk...

I think for a market like MTL BPA doesn't really work and we've seen a lot of examples of that during MB's/TT's tenure. Of course BPA will be different for a pro NHL scouting list relative to an amateur list but I think the main thing that amateur lists can't/don't factor in is the mental side of these prospects. And by amateur I mean everyone that isn't working for a NHL team.

You really need to be plugged into the business/be at ground level to understand who the real prospects are compared to the ones that have a lot of "fluff" (prospects who have more flash than substance).

The best NHL teams understand that the name of the game in scouting is resources, the more resources you have invested the more high quality info you can gather (you can dedicate ppl to various specific tasks/your personnel is higher quality/u can hire who u want/this creates a good work culture etc.).

Of course non NHL scouts don't have that info so you should just view lists purely from a hockey talent standpoint.. it's mainly just gossip . Basically the evaluation is done on everything you can see, no evaluation is done on what you can't see. The latter is where BPA will change drastically on NHL lists relative to amateur lists, even maybe big market NHL teams vs smaller market ones.

When you have that in place finding talent is 1 thing but then you need to dig deep to see which ones are 100% dedicated to the game, that's 1 of the most important aspects that amateur scouts can't really have a feel for. For a big market team this aspect is much more important vs other small market teams.

Prospects that get distracted and lose focus (and this isn't something that you can really train, you either have it or not based on your life experiences) won't flourish as well in this market. That's why BPA based on hockey skills isn't enough, you need to factor in BPA + their mental fortitude as well. I think this is the biggest change I've seen with our recent management, they prioritize that aspect a lot and it's been showing in the result.

Whoever we end up picking might not be the BPA in terms of pure hockey talent/package but you can be sure he'll be 1 of the best in terms of hockey package + dedication to the game. If that ends up being a Dman then so be it.

 

[le_sean]

Yeah Connelly ranking isn't taking into account the off ice shit, for sure.

Silayev over Demidov is size and position humping

Even without the off ice stuff, I have a hard time putting Connelly above Catton.