I'm personally not the biggest fan of acquiring Jiricek. Moreso given how our prospect pool is shaking-up at the moment.
Having watched Jiricek play a lot for HC Pizen in his draft year when we didn't know where we'd draft, and also for the Cleveland Monsters in the AHL since, I feel that a lot of Jiricek's attributes as a defenseman; the amazing shot from the point/ability to find seams to shoot through, the mix of great size, physical play, skill, as well as solid transition and puck-possession play, all of that is comparable to our own Logan Mailloux.
As such, I think that Jiricek and Mailloux would occupy the same "chair" if we had both in our system, meaning that one would make the other completely redundant/trade fodder to fill other needs.
Now, if we start to nitpick we can easily catch some pretty marked differences in the two players' toolsets.
Jiricek is a better passer, a better thinker of the game, also slightly bigger than Mailloux with more reach, and better angling along the boards. I also feel that Jiricek has less breakdowns against the cycle, and that he boxes-out his man and blocks passing lanes a bit better than Mailloux as of now.
But he's also not nearly as smooth-skating as Mailloux is, hasn't shown the same progression as Mailloux in the last year or two (an important factor in my mind), and I also personally don't think Jiricek's upside is actually all that much higher than Mailloux's if we get right down to it.
So yeah, simply put I feel it would be a mistake for the Canadiens to try and acquire Jiricek considering that we already have Mailloux and that the trade package we'd need to put forward to get him would most likely include players we DON'T want to trade, or our first-round pick this year, which we likely want to trade even less.
