HF Habs: What are your initial impressions of the Habs 2023 Draft class?

[Habs13]

Liked it for big brother and family
But I'm not sure why

He's the kind of player I love to watch and if he becomes the 4th line version of Arber, I'll be pretty happy about that

 

[Miller Time]

Honeymoon is over?

not for me...

I still have very high confidence in their approach and in the process they are taking. I don't think the picks/trades this year are at all inconsistent with what they've said so far, and while some would prefer quicker "wins", i like the meticulous and consistent approach.

All that said, results do matter... and both this year and last year they went a bit outside of "consensus" or "safe" (at least from PR/Central scouting/fan opinion side of things) picks with two prized pick positions. Slaf and Bach missing the mark and coming in at less than top-line/top-pairing NHLers would, fairly imo, deserve some criticism.

I did very much like Hughes comments in the presser yesterday... and take him at his word. He believes in Suzuki/CC/Dach having another level within their reach. I'm bullish on that too, and if that does play out, we'll be looking at 2-3 elite forwards at very good cap hits for a good chunk of time.

The big picture they are painting still offers lots of reasons to be confident in this group. No change in that for me, even if I wish they had picked Michkov. Aside from the appeal of a "messi-like" talent potential, picking him only to see Bach become the better NHLer would've been/will be less of a mistake than the opposite (Bach becoming a dominant #1 & Michkov being more Yak than Bure), imo.

 

[skidcells]

I had Reinbacher 6th so he was the best player available after the top 5. The issue is my second rated guy was sill there and passing up on him was disappointing. The first real big and controversial decision by this management group and down the road they will be judged on it. C+ rating for skipping on Michkov who for me was several tiers above Reinbacher.

Jacob Fowler was my top rated goaltender. Love the pick especially in the 3rd. A

Florian Xhekaj, F. If this pick was done with our 7th rounder I would understand but 4th? Seems that whoever scouted Crisp is still around..

Bogdan Konyushkov, would like to get insight from the organization the reasoning behind the pick. There seems to be something there from an analytical perspective. Overall, worth the risk where he was chosen and his production. B

Quentin Miller, doubling down on goalies in the same draft? Seems odd. There's potential here but my issue is why another goalie? Logically speaking, pick the one goalie you like the best and draft Ds or Fs with your other picks. Swing for the fences for Zetterbergs etc. D for the duplication.

Sam Harris, don't know much on him frankly. Realistically you would expect and want an overager to contribute more in the USHL. D

Yevgeni Volokhin, tripling down on goaltending now? F

Filip Eriksson, there's upside here. I can see reasons for taking a chance. There's a lot of speed & skill here but will have to refine his 200ft game. Worth taking a risk this late. C

Luke Mittelstadt, probably could've done but at round 7 at the end of the day it become inconsequential. Chances of any player reaching the league is slim. C

 

[Rob Sense]

No Mychkov? Sad. The rest I dont care. Happy we got Newhook.

Reinbacher + Newhook could be huge for our core. Here's hoping it works out fine

Ideally:

- Reinbacher: Top Paring D (50 point)​

- Newhook: top 6 C / W (65 to 70 points)​

- One goalie pans out and is our backup​

slim pickings in a tank year with one of the best drafts in 20 years. If the idiots who decide did not want Michkov at 5 they should have traded back to Philly and picked up more picks and not horking 2 away for Newhook....that newfie better get his act together or we are doomed to mediocrity til my death!!

 

[PavelBrendl]

For me it's a D.

I really like Reinbacher, but he wouldn't have been my pick. Would be much happier with him in a universe in which they didn't pass on Michkov at 5. Would have also preferred Dvorsky or Leonard.

Fowler is a nice pickup at 69.

No positive feelings about anything else, other than the cute Xhekaj reunion. Zero offensive upside in this crop.

 

[larek]

That's cool, but look at the rest of the conference:

Toronto - core 4 + Rielly, sufficient depth
Tampa - Still have their contending core
Florida - Cup finalists with cap relief
Boston - Big question mark, but lots of elite talent
Ottawa - Rebuild turning the core and incentive to improve
Buffalo - Ready to turn the corner with prospects and young NHLers
Detroit - Further along in the rebuild, have cap space to burn

Carolina - One of the best teams in the NHL, ready to push their chips in.
Devils - Already a force which has gotten much better already
Rangers - veteran core with developing young talent
Penguins & Washington have veteran elite talent and will be pushing to compete for as long as possible.
Columbus - Adding Fantilli, Severson and Provorov plus not missing Werenski for a whole season will do a lot help the team.

Flyers may be the only team in the east who can have a worse roster than Montreal. I'd say you're massively overrating Dach and Guhle's play last season if you think them getting healthy is going to do much.

Ghule what's with all the injuries - is that going to keep going

They clearly feel that the offensive attributes of Roy and Farrell, along with the games of Beck and others allowed them to make this move. There are young players in the system that will be able to slide into forward roles.

Aside from Mailloux, we have no one that could slide in and replace Eddy or Savard's minutes. They feel Reinbacher can do that AND be a Dahlin level player. If they're right, I'm more than fine with the pick.

You can't score goals if you can't get it out of your end. Reinbacher is the kind of guy that can do that multiple ways and knows what to do once it's out.

I think he will be Much more defensive than offensive- I think some will be disappointed in that- I believe he will be very average when he plays in the NHL- remember I said that

 

[An0n]

Chris Wideman is too - so that’s awesome.

Wideman has 1 year left on his contract so he doesn’t matter.

 

[larek]

He's the kind of player I love to watch and if he becomes the 4th line version of Arber, I'll be pretty happy about that

If it makes big X happy then I'm happy

 

[MarkovsKnee]

I gave it a C+ draft. Reinbacher is for sure an NHLer. Quality yet to be determined, but I like his upside.

Florian Xhekaj, wellllllll, shocked at that pick really, but I love his older brother, so sure why not. We need to get tougher upfront and in Laval.

I like Fowler. We'll see about the other 2 goalies.

 

[Wateredgarden]

Tbh it seems like they went on a hard bpa policy.

 

[Gustave]

3 goalies. I’m done with Hughes.

Wasn't there a draft where Timmins and co just picked LD's? like 5-6 of them?

 

[hockeyguy2022]

On the surface this is the most disappointing, discouraging draft that I can remember, and that includes the Kyle chipchura draft

Don't forget the Louis Leblanc draft lol

 

[ArtPeur]

Big W

For Whatever

 

[BenchBrawl]

F-

 

[Frank Drebin]

Fellas....fellas.

Cheer up now. This certainly wont be our last time that we're excited to have a chance to grab a franchise player only to have our dreams crushed by a management team who thinks they are too smart to make the obvious choice.

We'll have all kinds of opportunities to be disappointed by the draft again in the future.

 

[HuGort]

Wasted potential. With so much star talent available.

 

[Seven7]

Underwhelming.

No elite talent in 20 years, here's to 20 more.

 

[mbz]

Pathetic draft and the presser made it 100% worst. Lapointe is a black hole and needs to be fired asap.

 

[TheFalk]

On the overall pipeline,

I like the players we've assembled if i look at them individually, i think we have the best crop of young talent we've had in a very long time and i don't think its comparable to other past 4-5 years mini-eras where we had some c+/b- prospects we were hopeful about. This crop is B+/ A-, so a tangible step up. My concern is the overall tendence of these players is they are all nice/humble/cute type of guys, not much mean/confident/rugged types.. i feel like we have a team that may lack the bravado to make it when the going gets rough.

Hope im wrong and they all mature into gamers with good a good group chemistry.

 

[JoelWarlord]

Early to judge, but I went with a C for now. I'm a big fan of Reinbacher and he was my non-Michkov preference at 5 for a while so I'm pleased with that. I won't pretend I have scouted Fowler at all either, but I'm happy to get a B+ goalie prospect who's considered in the top tier from this draft.

Dislike Xhekaj Jr. since it seems like basically a non-pick to me, Pezzetta is the plausible upside and that's effectively a guy you just keep around for team morale. I've never heard of Konyushkov before today but the basic statistical profile and development arc is actually really interesting, I'm kinda excited by that pick and intrigued to see where he'll go. The goalies are goalies, whatever, cool with drafting a QMJHL goalie to play in Laval in a couple years, and the Russian G will be a guy you just sit and wait since you keep his rights forever. Harris, Eriksson, and Mittelstadt all just seem like pretty generic

The draft itself is certainly underwhelming, but I was convinced 2012 and 13 were amazing and they were dogshit. We also got Newhook out of those traded picks and I can't complain too much about that. I understand the disappointment for sure, but I'm definitely willing to wait and see here, especially because Konyushkov seems very intriguing.

 

[CHarlie]

Just our luck is all I gotta say.
Finish dead last one year short and drafted 5th with 4 of the best top 4 potential forwards in a long time.

 

[Weltschmerz]

Reinbacher will be good, but still would have preferd another forward even if you don't have the balls to take Michkov.

3 goalies is a headscrather.

Draft would be rated better if they took 2 hopefuls instead of trading for Newhook.

 

[montreal]

I don't know much about this class, I did not want Michkov, I badly wanted Will Smith, so I went into the draft expecting to be disappointed and boy was I.

Hopefully they drafted the next Seider, if not then the rebuild hasn't even started yet.

I read the first 2 or 3 pages, this does in fact feel like a MB/Timmins draft, though many of the same scouts this season where MB/Timmins's scouts too plus Lapointe. They must have felt this draft was total shit after the top 70 picks or so as it feels like the 2019 draft for me only this time it was us pulling a Flyers move and taking the wrong player and the team behind us getting the small one way sniper that should have went higher.

 

[Zorro]

Bad .. terrible actually

This is great! I remember the 2012 draft (Galchenyuk year) and everyone was ecstatic about our picks (Chucky, collberg, thrower etc..). How did those turn out? Maybe this will be the opposite, where we don't like the picks but they turn out to be great!

 

[mbz]

So, who's the hidden gem we missed on for Newhook? Not a shot at anyone, just curious if anyone has predictions on the matter.

We have so many picks/prospects, I would of used them to move up. At this point we need quality not quantity.