HF Habs: 2024 NHL Draft Thread

[Habs Halifax]

So Iggy can actually make a pass, huh?

Tij Iginla is the most complete forward with the less amount of nit pick flaws you can find vs any forward in this draft (except for Celebrini and yes, including Demidov). His game is built for the NHL and I'm sure his father has mentored him well in terms of what areas to work on besides goals and assists. His play along the boards with traffic is very mature for a guy who played his entire draft season at age 17 and was 1.5 months away from being in the the 2025 draft.

I have tried and tried to nit pick flaws with Tij. But he gets very good grades in many areas:

* Skating speed is OK. Cross overs and edge work is very good.

* Size/Weight is very attractive. He's on pace to reach his father size and I'd put high odds at that. Today at age 17, he is 6'-0" and 185 lbs and his father was 6'-1" and 209 lbs. He's going to be a physical force or at least not easy to push around. 20-25 more points and 1" more over the next 3 years is probable.

* Shot is NHL quality and one of the best in this draft. He's not just sniping certain areas of the net, he's scoring many different ways.

* His vision/play making is much better than he gets credit for. I would say he is ahead of his father in this area at the same age. He makes players around him better and that has lots of value for me.

* One of the youngest and hottest trending. I would not brush this under the rug either.

* Ability to handle traffic and physical contact along the boards is well ahead of the curve. Better than what you can see with Demidov. Demidov is just hard to catch because his skating is P Kane level.

* Hockey IQ seems to be good as well. He's very smart in terms of knowing where to go and how to communicate with his line mates.

* Obsessed at improving? Difficult to know for sure but I don't see any red flags

* Character? Reason to believe he will be well liked in the room like his father.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I'm just sick of that guy always ranking the small skilled guys so high. He had Marco Rossi and Cole Perfetti 3-4 in 2020. Jake Sanderson was 17th and Guhle wasn't even in his first round.

And now to nobodies surprise, he hates the fact we drafted Reinbacher last year, a non flashy player. I just want him to kick rocks already.

Size don't matter anymore is just wrong. But many can't comprehend the size debate well. They look at a smaller guy racking up points and then try to justify the past draft hits in comparison. For every smaller type player that turned into a top of the line-up asset, there are like 10 guys who bust. And you can say the same thing on the opposite end for guys with size. At the end of the day, you don't want the player to be too small and if you have some of them (Caufield and Hutson) for example, you need to ensure they are surrounded well. Proper rebuilds have the right strategy in place and if you take the risks of rebuilding, you stick to your plan.

I have no problem with having a roster full of guys around 5'-10 to 6'-0" range but they better have a good mix of physical strength and weight/grit has a lot to do with this.

 

[Mrb1p]

I think he'll be a Keller-like winger (a bit better though) in that he takes the winger's job off faceoffs and in the defensive zone but transitions and attacks through the middle of the ice like a center.

That's how I see it too. Keller and or Bratt like. Too smart too good. I'd love drafting him honestly. I do think adding beef should be #1 on the agenda though. Lindstrom and Iggy are above even if I'm not sure either players are actually "better".

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

With the combine coming up, seems like a good time to post my pre lottery top 100. Tough to say after the first 75 or so, but did my best to differentiate a bit.

1Macklin Celebrini
2Ivan Demidov
3Berkly Catton
4Zeev Buium
5Sam Dickinson
6Tij Iginla
7Cayden Lindstrom
8Artyom Levshunov
9Beckett Sennecke
10Zayne Parekh
11Anton Silayev
12Michael Brandsegg Nygard
13Konsta Helenius
14Liam Greentree
15Carter Yakemchuk
16Michael Hage
17Cole Eiserman
18Igor Chernyshov
19Cole Hutson
20Trevor Connelly
21Jett Luchanko
22Terik Parascak
23Yegor Surin
24Adam Jiricek
25Andrew Basha
26Nikita Artamonov
27Justin Poirier
28Stian Solberg
29Ryder Ritchie
30Teddy Stiga
31Dean Letourneau
32Alfons Freij
33Sacha Boisvert
34Julius Miettinen
35Miguel Marques
36Maxim Massé
37Charlie Elick
38Cole Beaudoin
39Matvei Gridin
40Emil Hemming
41Ben Danford
42Spencer Gill
43Dominik Badinka
44Aron Kiviharju
45Anthony Romani
46Tanner Howe
47Ilya Nabokov
48Sam O'Reilly
49Alexander Zetterberg
50John Mustard
51Matvei Shuravin
52Harrison Brunicke
53EJ Emery
54Henry Mews
55Adam Kleber
56Linus Eriksson
57Luke Misa
58Marek Vanacker
59Lucas Pettersson
60Leo Sahlin Wallenius
61Simon Zether
62Christian Humphreys
63Adam Jecho
64Jesse Pulkkinen
65Veeti Väisänen
66Lukas Fischer
67Brodie Ziemer
68Max Plante
69Kamil Bednarik
70Daniil Ustinkov
71Will Skahan
72Raoul Boilard
73Leon Muggli
74Colton Roberts
75Melvin Fernström
76Tomas Galvas
77Mac Swanson
78Colin Ralph
79Clarke Caswell
80AJ Spellacy
81Aatos Koivu
82Tarin Smith
83Sebastian Soini
84Nathan Villeneuve
85Luca Marrelli
86Luke Osburn
87Mikhail Yegorov
88Eriks Mateiko
89Félix Lacerte
90Herman Träff
91David Green
92Artyom Shchuchinov
93William Zellers
94Tory Pitner
95Riley Patterson
96Carter George
97Marcus Kearsey
98Yegor Graf
99Lucas Van Vliet
100Daniil Anatsky

 

[montreal]

Prospect Shifts

Quality shift-by-shift and highlight videos on draft eligible prospects

www.youtube.com

don't know who's channel that is but it looks like a possible gold mine for shift by shift vids. That is a f***ing shit ton of hours spent for pennies unless like Grant and others that can afford it and just pay Instat their huge fees to do the work for them. So I thought I would post this persons link to hopefully get them some views.

 

[Andrei79]

Prospect Shifts

Quality shift-by-shift and highlight videos on draft eligible prospects

www.youtube.com

don't know who's channel that is but it looks like a possible gold mine for shift by shift vids. That is a f***ing shit ton of hours spent for pennies unless like Grant and others that can afford it and just pay Instat their huge fees to do the work for them. So I thought I would post this persons link to hopefully get them some views.

He's a poster here. He used to do a shit ton of them in 2018 and 2019. I mentioned it earlier in the thread, so you're late on that one and maybe trying to take credit away from Andrei ? Or not, Im not very smart.

 

[Apfel Struble]

Four more weeks... man this is even more excruciating than last year

 

[Trabdy2]

Four more weeks... man this is even more excruciating than last year

Yeah it still seems so far away. At least with the combine next week, it'll give us more information for continued speculation for the next three weeks haha.

 

[montreal]

He's a poster here. He used to do a shit ton of them in 2018 and 2019. I mentioned it earlier in the thread, so you're late on that one and maybe trying to take credit away from Andrei ? Or not, Im not very smart.

Never saw that channel before but I was extremely impressed with the number of draft vids as I know that amount of work that they must have put into it and google doesn't pay shit unless you are getting say 1M views a month and even that I don't know if you could afford to live off that alone which for the amount of time it takes would be hard to work other jobs.

I don't always pay a lot of attention to the draft thread as it's not really my thing but since we have sucked lately I have been paying more attention to the draft. I haven't had time to watch too much lately as work is f***ing crazy busy but this will save me some time trying to watch some of these kids as there were a bunch of names I never even heard of as I haven't seen any WHL or Q games or USHL and I only saw the USNTDP once or twice.

 

[Schooner Guy]

I'm just sick of that guy always ranking the small skilled guys so high. He had Marco Rossi and Cole Perfetti 3-4 in 2020. Jake Sanderson was 17th and Guhle wasn't even in his first round.

And now to nobodies surprise, he hates the fact we drafted Reinbacher last year, a non flashy player. I just want him to kick rocks already.

It's also funny that he never mentions the possibility (or probability) that Catton moves to the wing in the NHL. Even Catton's top supporters acknowledge that possibility.

Wheeler also wouldn't put Mailloux in the Habs top 10 prospects last year because he doesn't like him as a person. If he was a Leafs prospect, you'd know he'd have him high on his list.

 

[skidcells]

Catton. Think this shows he’s likely a winger at the next level.

View attachment 877467


I mean you can’t expect someone to watch 60 games of every prospect. He has a big enough sample size to get a fair understanding of a player.

This is 2024. Teach an AI how to score things and have it look at games

Mitch is a quant guy so take the quant to the next level!

 

[yianik]

Yes, they offered it right after the draft with the specific intention of him turning it down to go to college. It's common practice between NHL teams and NCAA prospects.

Okay thanks I was unaware of that practice and so had the context all wrong. Still, guessing he would have said yes if they offered again, so that common practice worked in our favor.

 

[Steve Shutt]

Lol. David Fischer turned down a contract offer ?. Well if anybody was going to turn down a contract from us glad it was him.

In case anyone enjoys trade trees - this one took 14 years to unfold:

2006 Pick #20 = David Fischer
David Fisher = 2011 Pick # 50 (compensation)
2011 Pick # 50 = Traded for J.Wisniewski (43 gp w MTL)
Wisniewski Traded for 2012 CLB 5th
2012 CLB 5th = Charles Hudon (125 gp w MTL)
Charles Hudon = Becomes UFA in 2020

Davis Fischer netted us 168 gp, 71 pts (CH=41, JW=30)

​

 

[Vachon23]

Draft prospect hockey updated there mock draft simulator with McKenzie and Button list. Here is what I did

5: Tij Iginla
26: Michael Hage
46: Cole Beaudoin
66: Justin Poirier
78: Ben Danford
130: Alexandre Blais
166: Austin Burnevik
198: Justin Gendron
222: Jack Pridham

 

[Gally11]

Draft prospect hockey updated there mock draft simulator with McKenzie and Button list. Here is what I did

5: Tij Iginla
26: Michael Hage
46: Cole Beaudoin
66: Justin Poirier
78: Ben Danford
130: Alexandre Blais
166: Austin Burnevik
198: Justin Gendron
222: Jack Pridham

I feel like Chicago traded up two picks to take a swing at Hage as they’ll be picking a D man at 2

 

[McGees]

Yes if he were GM. It’s not a prediction of who they think teams will take.

If it isn't a mock of who he thinks team will take then isn't it just a ranking?

 

[WeThreeKings]

If it isn't a mock of who he thinks team will take then isn't it just a ranking?

Not necessarily because there's 3 guys doing the mock.

 

[RationalExpectations]

You seem to be correct judging by Mitch Brown’s player cards

View attachment 877442

Always feels nice when advanced stats corroborate the eye test

 

[Steve Shutt]

How much would Calgary need to offer to move from #9 to #5 so they can snag Iginla?

 

[WeThreeKings]

How much would Calgary need to offer to move from #9 to #5 so they can snag Iginla?

They can probably sit there and get him at 9. But they'd have to pay their additional first and a 3rd to make that move, I believe. Doubt we'd entertain it.

 

[McGees]

Iginla at 14 and Helenius at 16 in that mock.
Don't quit your day job Wheeler and crew...oh wait, this is their day job.

 

[The Great Weal]

How much would Calgary need to offer to move from #9 to #5 so they can snag Iginla?

I'd ask for the Canucks 1st. And frankly, if Celebrini/Demidov/Lindstrom are gone, I'd make that trade. I don't really see much (if any) separation between the other forwards. Not to mention that Arizona/Ottawa/Seattle are all likely taking dmen too.

 

[montreal]

How much would Calgary need to offer to move from #9 to #5 so they can snag Iginla?

If you use the draft pick trade value chart,

5th OA is worth 484 trade value
9th OA is worth 372 trade value

So you would want around 112 trade value to drop down if not more. The 36th OA is worth 111 trade value

 

[morhilane]

Always feels nice when advanced stats corroborate the eye test

Mitch Brown's cards are not really what people call advanced stats in hockey. There is no corsi, or xGF% on them. Some of the stats in there are used to calcualte corsi and its friends thought. It's more a counted version of the "eye test".

It is made with small sample size (usually 10 games) thought and the percentile comparison doesn't care about leagues from what I remember.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Iginla at 14 and Helenius at 16 in that mock.
Don't quit your day job Wheeler and crew...oh wait, this is their day job.

Not that farfetched.. really the only names I see going earlier that might not would be Eiserman, MBN and Solberg.