tomh009

My inclination would be to keep Evans with Anderson and Gallagher as that combo seems to work well together. But we'll find out what St-Louis thinks after the dog days of summer when the training camp starts ...

It's a bargain for the Habs if Dobes can maintain his form from the last season.

To clarify, the comment about mental health was mine, not Commandant's.

No shaming. Just a perfectly factual comment: mental health is a very serious thing. We have had other players struggle with it in the past, both on the Habs and elsewhere--not to mention all the people outside of hockey. It's a real, serious problem and I think all of us should recognize that.

... or they expected Mooney to drop more yet, so they grabbed Pickford and Radkov in the third round. This is just speculation, though, I have no insider info on their thinking.

Or they preferred Mooney based on their scouting evaluations?

Whether you like a player or not, mental health is never a silly thing.

Sorry, that was a Tuch one to miss! 😂

Xhekaj. Thorpe. Paupanekis. That's three big forwards that can add strength and grit to the Habs' F corps, without sacrificing (too much) skill. Hopefully one or two of them can hit their ceilings in the coming years.

I think not too aggressive at all. They have not been selling their future but using selected picks to get high-quality young players (not veterans in their 30s) that can play with the team for years. As I said in an earlier post, the prospect pool rankings show that the Habs' pipeline is not emptying out, they continue to have one of the strongest sets of prospects in the league, even with the team being one of the youngest in the NHL (probably top three in the coming season).

Oh, how things have changed!

He actually said only that his shot was better than his dads. And he does seem to have a very good shot. Indeed they are both in Montreal. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/son-of-saku-aatos-koivu-looking-to-make-a-name-for-himself-in-mo~3162882

It would be interesting to take a look at the big kids' success rates vs the smaller ones in a few years--are they actually more successful, or not?

18 forwards signed now, so some of them will surely be playing in Trois-Rivieres. Only seven defencemen, though.

That would likely be as a backup, right?

Yes, the prospect pool rankings evaluate the strength of the pool, not contracts or expected arrival in the NHL. But the point is that the Habs continue to have a strong set of prospects. If you want to try to project things more precisely, you can certainly do spreadsheets. However ... it really is difficult to project such things, because we cannot tell what the team management's plans are for any given prospect or position. I don't think any of use could foresee the trade of picks+Heineman for Dobson, or Mailloux for Balduc, for example.

I don't know that this kind of chart is really a good way to evaluate a team's prospect pipeline. I think you'd be much better off looking at the annual rankings of one of the writers that studies prospects and publishes evaluations. For example, Scott Wheeler at the Athletic has the following rankings for the Habs' prospect pool: 2020: 2nd 2021: 6th 2022: 8th 2023: 6th 2024: 10th 2025: 3rd That's pretty consistently strong since the last few years of Bergevin (credit to him for not emptying the cupboard for the 2021 playoff run!), staying in the top 10 even as the prospects have graduated to NHL regulars. I don't really have a concern here at the moment, even if Mailloux has been traded. Just for fun, here are the Habs' top 10 prospects from the 2020 evaluation: 1. Caufield (elite) 2. Harris (bottom-pairing D) 3. Romanov (solid, middle-pairing D) 4. Struble (bottom-pairing D) 5. Poehling (bottom-six C) 6. Primeau (marginal AHL/NHL player) 7. Norlinder (SHL) 8. Ylonen (SHL) 9. Brook (KHL) 10. Hillis (Liiga) And that's for the second-ranked prospect pool.

Duh! Evans! Sorry about that ...

Yes ... at this point our primary forward PK options from last season are Suzuki (!) and Anderson. Maybe Bolduc can play a role--or Kapanen/Beck. We'll surely start with a weaker PK than last season, but let's see whether St-Louis can rebuild it through the season.

Hughes said in an interview yesterday that it's not possible to do everything in one summer. Dobson and Bolduc are both long-term additions to the Habs' core, and Dobson, in particular, elevates the Habs' D to near-elite level (and maybe elite depending on Reinbacher's and other young defenders' development). The loss of Armia and Dvorak ($5.4M AAV!) hurts the PK but this is a short-term issue that will be addressed through either internal development or through the addition of another forward.

No, I'm the one that is mistaken! Kulak was indeed drafted by the Flames. I don't know how I forgot about that ...

Of the players drafted by the Habs after the second round, there is also Kulak, who has played 600+ games. And Mete and Pezzetta 😊 have played 200+.

I'm not surprised that he didn't want to match Dvorak's $5.4M but he must have been much closer to the $2.5M that Armia got. Blais must then have been Plan B since he couldn't get Armia at the price he wanted.

Primeau 😊

Want to stay they may, but right now it looks like they are moving backwards.