Habs Rebuild About to Take Off

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I’m not a Habs fan, but I have to commend the job they are doing. I think they are going to make waves in the league the next 3-4 years with their rebuild. They might have the best young core in hockey.

Jeff Gorton was doing the same very good work to start out his time with the Rangers, and then the owner got impatient, fired him, and now he’s doing the same things in rebuilding the Habs with the help of Hughes.

The Habs have a lot of pieces of a future Cup contender. Lane Hutson is headed towards being one of the top 10-15 best defensemen in the NHL. He will score points with the best D in the league. It’s a matter of if he can learn to drive defensive results. Time will tell there, but the potential is also there to be one of the best defensemen in the NHL. Demidov looks like a STUD with what he’s doing in the KHL. We knew it before this season. He was a steal of a pick, but he’s proving it now in the KHL. He should become one of the next great Russian wingers in the NHL.

They got a lot of criticism for Slafkovsky, but they’ve hit on the pick. He should be a longtime, very desirable style of first line winger, if not a star. Jacob Fowler is one of the best goaltender prospects in hockey. All he does is put up good save percentages year after year and lead teams to winning hockey. He reminds me a little of Swayman in that he’s an American late birthday that went USHL, didn’t get the NTDP hype, not the biggest showman type goaltender, but he’s consistently very good everywhere he plays.

They also have a lot of young players who are successful, if not better, NHL players and compliment the group well with Caufield, Suzuki, Guhle, Dach. They have other prospects coming too. People make fun of the Reinbacher pick, and I won’t lie and say it’s good, but he’s likely going to have a long NHL career. Successful rebuilds usually miss on a pick or two, and the miss shouldn’t even be that bad. Xhekaj, Xhekaj, Mailloux, Beck, Roy, Engstrom, Barron, Struble, Hage, Konyushkov, Volokhin, Mesar is a deep and talented prospect pool with quality and quantity.

Some of those prospects will hit and they will add to a young core that already has some good established pieces and a few burgeoning stars that are core pieces. They’ll probably get another top 10 pick this year. Possibly even top 5.

Call me overly optimistic, but I repeat that I’m not a Habs fan. Looking at things from afar, I think this team is set up to become a juggernaut in the NHL within the next five years.

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[neelynugs]

hopefully, sir...you are wrong

 

[MNRube]

They do have an undeniably loaded group of U25 roster players and prospects.

I prefer the rebuilds occurring in Anaheim and San Jose because they have more quality up the middle but Montreal looks great too. Their blueline has the potential to be the highest scoring in the NHL in a few years

 

[majormajor]

Not every rebuilding club has a very good top line like the Habs have. And they've got Hutson and Guhle on D. It's a good group of 5 young players. After that the current level drops off significantly (on the NHL club). Demidov will help a lot and then maybe one or two of the depth prospects will pop. Reinbacher should be a solid top 4 guy if he can be healthy. Dach might be fine if healthy. After that I see more quantity than quality.

Rebuilds don't need every 23 man position filled with young players. They're better off not doing that actually! Having a few young guys really pop would be more meaningful. The team looks like it could take a step right now, but the shortfall seems more to be in the veterans. The team does not defend well.

Dach is a good talent but I think the Habs would be better positioned to take a step if they acquire a strong veteran 2C who can play harder minutes for them. I'm thinking about what Kadri did in Colorado, Bennett in Florida, Trocheck right now in New York. Trying to fill every key role with young players is a mistake. It should be mixed.

 

[Juxtaposer]

There's a lot of young talent on that team and they should be very good for a long while. But I don't tend to love teams who are built from the wing--Slafkovsky and Demidov are the only guys with star potential in their org and I don't see a legit #1D amongst their prospects. When was the last time a team won a Cup with neither a star #1C nor a legit #1D? I personally think that a defense can be built to perform #1D duties by committee with the right combination of skill sets and I could see the Habs D shaking out that way (Guhle as the high-end shutdown D, Hutson as the elite PPQB, and Reinbacher as the steady minute-eater), but without a center better than Suzuki (who is a low-end #1C), where is the star power at premium positions?

 

[Garbageyuk]

Appreciate the impartial sentiment because there isn’t enough of that on here, but I must be objective; I don’t really agree that Gorton was doing good work with the Rangers, and his work in MTL with Hughes, while looking promising, is uncertain. There are still a lot of moves that are up in the air, and even look not so good - Mesar, Dach, Lehkonen, Newhook, Reinbacher, Beck, Laine, etc. There’s potential, but a lot still needs to go right. And there’s still no elite 1C, and it doesn’t look like that’s likely to change anytime soon.