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Habs Prospects Shell Shocked By Baby Sens, Evans Released From Hospital

September 8, 2018, 2:14 PM ET [300 Comments]
Brandon Smillie
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT



The Canadiens development camp tourney got off to a pretty rough start last night as the Sens prospects took over the game after the 1st period. To add injury to insult (yes, I know the saying is reversed) top prospect J Evans was stretched off the ice after a huge collision and was, thankfully, released from hospital this morning.

Evans had been showing to be one of the few prospects with anything good going on so his loss to a possible concussion is a delay to his professional career that I wish could have been avoided. I felt that he could have been a dark horse candidate out of camp to make the team due to his age and collegiate experience.




Another Hab that impressed me were defenseman Josh Brook who appeared to be light years ahead of his teammates on D.

I thought Hillis and Bitten showed some professional level potential as well, they compete well, put themselves in some good spots, and looked like they had minimal jitters.

All in all a pretty lousy game to try and write about, to be honest. It was a disappointing showing from 3rd overall pick J Kotkaniemi. After all I had read about his maturity and poise before the game I didn’t really see any of that during the game. He was outmuscled and out manned most of the game. Some positives would be he appeared poised and drew some penalties.

I know he’s the long game pick and I’m not trying to toss him under the bus here, but just acknowledging what kind of game he had. We all need to remember that he was picked due to organizational need, not current NHL readiness. He was selected to hopefully grow into a top line Center while someone like Tkachuk (my personal pick heading into the draft) or Zadina may come out firing on all cylinders immediately but likely only be wingers.

Not that selecting a winger is bad, in fact I thought Tkachuk could be a center, but other people get paid to watch a lot more hockey than I do and Timmins has been pretty damn good the last few years so I’ll believe his hype on Kotkaniemi. But wow did Tkachuk have himself a game. A team with a Weber, Gallagher, and a Tkachuk would have been something in my eyes, but I digress….

Don’t bury the kid before he’s had a chance to develop. Most kids don’t hit their stride until they are 20-22 and Kotkaniemi could be right in that group which would put him 2-4 years away from even playing in Montreal. Give him time and we will see what happens. He could be the next Barkov or Kopitar type player, he may just need his own time to mature his game physically and mentally.




My only real gripe with his pick at #3 is that I am always a bit cautious about prospects that jump from mid to late first to top 3 in a matter of a couple months, but that’s just me. I hope Kotkaniemi is the new face of the franchise, I just don’t expect that to happen for another couple years and I would suggest those who think he’s coming in this year to do the same.

Maybe he could play better without 30 microphones and cameras in front of his face after every meal but such is life in the MTL hockey market.

Perhaps new Laval coach J Bouchard will give him some pointers about dealing with the press, his interactions so far are golden in my eyes.




Realistically, this is the first game from a bunch of players tossed together for the first time and it showed. There was no real leadership with only a couple players stepping up to make an impact like Brooks, Bitten, Evans and Hillis. Not much to really read into here, it’s just unfortunate that after being dominated after the 1st period and Evans injury nobody showed any fire. I kind of expected players to get a bit more jump when you’re fighting to make an impression and one of your top players gets KO’d, but it’s also hard to play hockey when the back end can’t really move the puck up.

All in all, this is just a first look moment with plenty of camp left to see who trends upward, who takes the advice and implements it in games, who can dig deeper and find their inner desire to a force in games. These things aren’t what you see in the first game, although it would have been great to see someone jump forward immediately like Tkachuk did.

Keep expectations tempered and you won’t be disappointed. Some people are already calling some players busts and that’s crazy. If you thought Kotkaniemi was going to step in and dominate immediately then you were clueless to begin with. Young kid from a different style of game coming over to hockeys most crazy market playing with people he never played with before after having the media act like Gretzky was playing for the Habs now. Of course he looked nervous. You should view him as someone gaining experience and knowledge in a new market that he’s going to take with him and learn to adapt. You know, like any other prospect would have to.

Stop acting like every first round choice the Habs make is the next Jack Eichel and you can save yourself a lot of fan stress and anxiety. Let the kid develop with a reasonable timeline expectation and in 3 years if he can’t crack an NHL roster then you can rightly ascertain that maybe he doesn’t have what it takes. But we are so far from that it shouldn’t be a topic except for garbage hot takes and click bait.

Go Habs Go.
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