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In Hainsight: 2023 Draft – Round 2 to 7 |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
After picking 5th overall, the Canadiens had a long wait ahead at the draft having traded their 2 second round picks to the Avalanche for Alex Newhook. With pick 69, the Canadiens opted for Jacob Fowler, a goaltender who’s committed to play with Boston College next season, but he says his hockey career is his priority, Which probably means he won’t be staying in college until he completes his degree. The latest pick of the organization has already got some connections in the province with family members residing in both Montreal and Quebec City. In the post draft availability, Lapointe and Bobrov were questioned about whether the netminder’s physique was a concern for them (Fowler is 6’2’’ and weights in at 223 lbs which is a lot for an 18-year-old kid) and brushed the question aside, saying that he moves well and he’s comfortable in his own body, he’s an agile competitor and it wasn’t a concern. Hopefully, this means he takes as much space in his net as Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Bolts goaltender is 6’4’’ and 220 lbs.
The Habs would have liked to get another pick in the 3rd round to take Mathieu Cataford a center from the LHJMQ, but they apparently couldn’t find a trading partner, so they had to wait until the 4th round to speak again. With pick number 101, the Canadiens dipped in the OHL, selecting from the Hamilton Bulldogs, 19-year-old winger Florian Xhekaj. Clearly, the Habs loved Arber’s attitude and decided to give the family another go. Then, at pick 110, Montreal went for another right-shot defender in Bogdan Konyushkov from the KHL, a 20-year-old. To wrap-up the round, Montreal then drafted another goaltender, Montreal native Quentin Miller who spent the last season in the LHJMQ with the Quebec Remparts, playing back-up to William Rousseau. The net should be his this upcoming season as the Quebec outfit undergoes a rebuild.
In the 5th round, the Canadiens selected Sam Harris, a 19-year-old left winger of the USHL who got 56 points in 56 games last season and is committed to the University of Denver for the upcoming season. With their other 5th round pick, the one they got in the Toffoli trade with the Flames, the Habs picked a Russian goaltender, Yevgeni Volokhin.
Speaking once in the 6th round, Montreal elected to go for a 6’0” center Filip Erickson from Sweden and finally, with their last pick of the day, the 197th one overall, they went for another defenseman, this time a left shot one; Luke Mittelstadt out of the University of Minnesota. Mittelstadt is already 20 years old, and he is Buffalo’s Jack Mittlestadt’s brother.
In other words, the Canadiens have drafted 3 defensemen, 3 goaltenders and 3 forwards in this draft. They also selected quite a few players that are “overager” or not in their first year of eligibility (Mittelstadt (20), Xhekaj (19) and Konuyushkov (20)) and a player who’s seen very little action this past year (13 games) in center Filip Eriksson. Martin Lapointe said that selecting older players, when they play in the NCAA or in Europe gives you more of a runaway, it gives you more time to sign them, but at the same time, it might also mean that they join the team faster.
While we’ve all seen what Arber Xhekaj can bring to a team and the kind of positive attitude he has, I’ll admit that I was surprised to see his brother Florian drafted in the 3rd round. Only two public ranking lists had him listed, Central Scouting who placed him at 131amongst North American skaters and Draft Prospects Hockey who had him at 214th. In his rookie season with the Bulldogs, the younger Xhekaj posted 13 goals and 12 assists in 68 games with 76 penalty minutes. It was his first season in the OHL as he played Junior B hockey the year before. He’s a forward who isn’t scared to go to the busy area to score “garbage goals” and he’s apparently less aggressive than his older brother. Could he eventually be a bigger version of Brendan Gallagher? At 6’2” and with what I’ve read about him, perhaps, but he’ll need a lot of things to go right to find his way to the NHL. When asked why they felt comfortable drafting the younger Xhekaj so early in the draft, Lapointe and Bobrov answered: “We know the family, we know Arber, the apple doesn’t fall far from the three. He brings a lot of combativity to his play, he’ll improve year after year. We believe in his talent, and he’ll bring a physical dimension to our team”.
I’m glad the Canadiens selected 3 goaltenders this time around, Carey Price’s early retirement (in anything but name) has caught the organization by surprise, and it was clearly not yet ready to fill such a void. With Cayden Primeau being waiver eligible this season and the Canadiens deciding to cut ties with Frederik Dichow, there was a need to address the position. The team felt that when the goaltenders would start coming off the board, they would be coming off fast, so they picked Fowler and then another 2 quite quickly. It will be interesting to see how they all develop over the coming years.
According to Stephane Leroux, RDS’ resident LHJMQ expert, only 12 players from the local league were drafted this time around, the smallest number ever. The Canadiens did their part by selecting Quentin Miller and the 37th overall pick which was originally theirs but traded to Colorado before being flipped to Tampa was used by the Lightning to draft Ethan Gauthier, son of former NHL Denis Gauthier.
On The Reinbacher selection, Boborov said: “It’s no mystery how hard it is to acquire some assets and what it takes to get them, we’ve all watched his growth, his potential and we see that every draft, teams try to trade up and get that guy, so we were fortunate that he was there for us and we’ve got very high hopes for him”. I didn’t like that answer much, from everything we’ve heard, teams that wanted to trade for the Canadiens’ 5th overall pick were trying to move up to get Matveu Michkov and not Reinbacher, I would have preferred hearing that for the Canadiens, he was the best player available.
Lapointe and Bobrov also added: “We loved the knowns that we had on the player vs the unknowns we had with others. We felt it was the right place, the right player. We are building a culture, Jeff, Kent, Marty, the coaching staff, and we felt this player embodies the culture we’re trying to put in place and this was important to us”. It’s not the first time Habs fans hear about the culture, Marc Bergevin used that word very often, but many feel that perhaps it’s given too much importance over pure raw skills and talent. To those I’ll say that Alexander Ovechkin didn’t win a Stanley Cup until Barry Trotz got him to buy into the team concept and play at both ends of the ice, there’s no denying that culture is important, but so is talent.
I saw a tweet which mentioned that in a very deep offensive draft, the Canadiens started off with 4 picks in the top 40 and didn’t use a single one of them to improve their attack, I think that’s misleading. Picks 31 and 37 were sent to Colorado to get Alex Newhook, a 22-year-old who has yet to pan out in the NHL but clearly, the Habs brass feels that they’ve put the right development team in place to help him reach his potential and that’s how they’ve used those two traded picks to improve their attack. There are no guarantees when it comes to knowing how a pick will pan out, at least they already know that Newhook can make the NHL and play in all circumstances, it’s up to them to help him along and unlock his full potential now.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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