Taking a look back at over 30 years worth of Habs prospect top 10 lists

[dcyhabs]

A few things jump out from the list and checking habs drafts with games played:

Not many prospects make it.
Way too many horrible first round choices. So very many bad ones.
Most other teams don't do that much better, but most don't mess up first rounders as often. Lots of randomness.
A few discards were good and should have had more chances: Vokoun, Hainsey, Beauchemin, Conroy
Trades were hit and miss, Vujtek, Balej were good, McDonough was bad, Sergachev could go either way.

Habs scouting was just horrible for years. Knock Timmins but he's a step up from the previous regimes. The top picks were terrible for years and lots of mediocre players were given way too much time and effort.

A few guys just go hurt, Wilkie, Leblanc, Chipchura...

Some personality conflicts, behaviour, and general weirdness: Kostitsyns, Grabovski, Leblanc again, Perzhogin, Hainsey

The habs just could not scout D... Bilodeau, Brown, and all the other big slow guys, Fitzpatrick, were given chances while Beauchemin was overlooked. They traded from the best D in the league to a pretty bad D; the braintrust didn't even know their own team was good. The guys they liked were all great in the AHL but not in the NHL, there was no view for progression. The habs had great farm teams for years, all those failed prospects. Sort of like Rychel and company. Now the farm team is just bad...

 

[Habs Halifax]

I don't really know how fair that is. Seems largely irrelevant with how many picks we have anyway. We just need one or two good prospects from the upcoming draft on top of an elite prospect with our first pick and we easily jump to mid level.

That ranking had lots of bias in it. If it was the hockey writers one, that report was done by a guy who typically reports for the Leafs. He had the Leafs ranked top 10 even after the gradation of their 3 young guns. He also had the Sens in the bottom 5 with the Habs. Sens had Chabot, Brown, Batherson, Bowers, + at the time the report came out.

Rankings are a wild guess after the top 5 or top 10 obvious teams. Rankings from 11-31 is very difficult to lock down cause most teams have similar assets. IMO, the Habs were not bottom 5 (after the 2017 NHL draft), we were middle of the pack somewhere.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Holy crap, 2010 & 2011 were just brutal...

08-11 draft years are a massive black hole in our drafting history. Only Gallagher to show for 4 years of drafting is brutal. Only 8 top 100 picks in that 4 year span is a huge reason why it took years for us to recover. Not many will admit it but the ripple effects from those 4 years are the reasons why we people thought we sucked at drafting and developing.

 

[Habs Halifax]

It will be interesting to see our prospects group after this year’s draft. With our cornecopia of pickadded to our current pool: Poehling is interesting, as are some othe picks. But, it does seem like the Bergevin picks have been slim on potential throughout the rounds.

Look at each draft year and bust potential starting at 15th in the 1st round. When we have a top 10 pick, we do well. When we pick 15+, we struggled to hit. We also were missing several 2nd round picks from 14-16 draft years.

07: McDonagh, Patch, Subban. Likely our best draft in the last few decades

08-11: Only Gallagher to show for it. Only 8 top 100 picks in 4 years. Just an absolutely terrible 4 year span!

12/13: Galchenyuk (Domi), Hudon, DLR, Lehkonen. We had several top 100 picks but those draft years were not strong when you look back now. We got a bit unlucky with a stock pile of picks in two draft years that does not seem to have many chances to hit

14-16: Scherbak, Juulsen, Sergachev (Drouin). Still early with Evans, Lernout, Vejdemo but they don't appear to be top of the line-up players. We were missing 2nd round picks in each of these 3 seasons as well.

17/18: 12 top 100 picks which was similar to 13/14. It does appear however that these draft years are better though. Poehling, Brook, Ikonen, Primeau, Fleury, Kotkaniemi, Ylonen, Romanov, Olofsson, McShane, etc.

If you want to measure out the "false hope" evaluation. The best years to compare are 13/14 to 17/18 IMO. I don't believe it's the same hope due to draft plus development years. This is what people ignore in terms of projected hope.

 

[Bacchus1]

Look at each draft year and bust potential starting at 15th in the 1st round. When we have a top 10 pick, we do well. When we pick 15+, we struggled to hit. We also were missing several 2nd round picks from 14-16 draft years.

07: McDonagh, Patch, Subban. Likely our best draft in the last few decades

08-11: Only Gallagher to show for it. Only 8 top 100 picks in 4 years. Just an absolutely terrible 4 year span!

12/13: Galchenyuk (Domi), Hudon, DLR, Lehkonen. We had several top 100 picks but those draft years were not strong when you look back now. We got a bit lucky with a stock pile of picks in two draft years that does not seem to have many chances to hit

14-16: Scherbak, Juulsen, Sergachev (Drouin). Still early with Evans, Lernout, Vejdemo but they don't appear to be top of the line-up players. We were missing 2nd round picks in each of these 3 seasons as well.

17/18: 12 top 100 picks which was similar to 13/14. It does appear however that these draft years are better though. Poehling, Brook, Ikonen, Primeau, Fleury, Kotkaniemi, Ylonen, Romanov, Olofsson, McShane, etc.

If you want to measure out the "false hope" evaluation. The best years to compare are 13/14 to 17/18 IMO. I don't believe it's the same hope due to draft plus development years. This is what people ignore in terms of projected hope.

I can’t remember writing this, but I am happy with the last 2 years of picks. I’m hoping this year is good, too.

I’m expecting us to miss the playoffs, and I’m hoping we rise through the lottery and get a top 10 pick.

We have no stud LD, so I would expect us to draft or trade for one. If we get a good pick this year, maybe we can pull another Sergachev/Drouin flip for a young LD who is ready to break out. This off season will be important in determining if we are contenders/pretenders/dead-enders.

 

[habergeon]

Pretty fun looking at these lists, nice share.

And if I'm being honest, there was a time I was excited at the prospect of Pierre Sevigny's pro career. Thought his game would really translate to pro.

 

[Bacchus1]

Pretty fun looking at these lists, nice share.

And if I'm being honest, there was a time I was excited at the prospect of Pierre Sevigny's pro career. Thought his game would really translate to pro.

I remember being excited aboit Gilbert Dionne. Was expecting his brother. Of course, that was before the internet, so it was based on pure speculation.

 

[CapSpace]

2011 was turbo trash.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I can’t remember writing this, but I am happy with the last 2 years of picks. I’m hoping this year is good, too.

I’m expecting us to miss the playoffs, and I’m hoping we rise through the lottery and get a top 10 pick.

We have no stud LD, so I would expect us to draft or trade for one. If we get a good pick this year, maybe we can pull another Sergachev/Drouin flip for a young LD who is ready to break out. This off season will be important in determining if we are contenders/pretenders/dead-enders.

We don't know if we have no stud LD or not yet. We have to wait on Romanov. Mete and Romanov are our only two guys I see as top 4D potential on the Left Side.

 

[Burke the Legend]

2011 - 2016
yikes

I don't want to start big conversations about Weber, Drouin & Shaw (which are controversial but value wise I would say are close to break even) but I would say the fact that this Habs team is close to playoffs is actually a testament to MB running a pretty solid trading and pro scouting operation to be able to pickup talent like Danault, Byron, Petry and Armia for almost nothing. Then also the big Galchenyuk & Pacioretty trades this summer are looking like knockouts so far. He's had some misses for sure like Alzner but overall he's on the positive side of the ledger for trading which is the only way the roster has been filled out decently after these grim 2011-2016 drafting years. Still have to hope for better results from these 2017-2018 classes now because you can't build a cup roster just through trading, need to find some scores in the draft too which there was not much of these past years.

 

[dcyhabs]

Funny that Andrighetto has scored slightly more than Lekhonen. Lehkonen is unlucky and better defensively, and Andrighetto had MacKinnon on his line for a while, so they aren't really comparable, but the stats are interesting.

 

[Michoulicious]

Hey guys, using my old issues of THN I thought I would compile a set of lists from the old "Future Watch" and "In The System" issues. The first "In The System issue was in 1989. In 1992 it became "Future Watch."

I figure some of you might find this interesting. Just to see how our prospects were ranked at that time by scouts. Sorry if it's a long post.. I'll change the font so the post won't be so damn big.

Remember that with these FW issues, as long as you're not considered an NHL regular at the time of printing, you're considered a prospect for these lists. Age doesn't matter.

Also, I'm not sure about back in the early 90's. But for the past 15+ years at least, the lists were provided by a member of the actual organization.

1989:

1.Andrew Cassels
2.Mathieu Schneider
3.John LeClair
4.Stephane Lebeau
5.Randy Exelby
6.Sylvain Lefebvre
7.Benoit Brunet
8.Eric Charron
9.Francois Gravel
10.Jocelyn Lemieux

1990:

1.Andrew Cassels
2.Mathieu Schneider
3.Mark Pederson
4.Tom Chorske
5.Andre Racicot
6.Lindsay Vallis
7.Patrice Brisebois
8.Patrick Lebeau
9.Ed Cristofoli
10.Eric Charron

1991: (they only did a top 5 this year)

1.Gilbert Dionne
2.Lindsay Vallis
3.Patrice Brisebois
4.Patrik Kjellbrg
5.Patrik Carnback

1992:

1.Vladimir Vujtek
2.Gilbert Dionne
3.Patrick Lebeau
4.Paul DiPietro
5.Patrice Brisebois
6.Sean Hill
7.Brent Bilodeau
8.Patrik Kjellberg
9.Turner Stevenson
10.Jim Campbell

1993:

1.Brent Bilodeau
2.Valeri Bure
3.Turner Stevenson
4.Paul DiPietro
5.Pierre Sevigny
6.Yves Sarault
7.Jesse Belanger
8.Brian Savage
9.Oleg Petrov
10.David Wilkie

1994:

1.Valeri Bure
2.Saku Koivu
3.Jim Campbell
4.Brian Savage
5.Christian Proulx
6.David Wilkie
7.Craig Darby
8.Turner Stevenson
9.Les Kuntar
10.Rory Fitzpatrick

1995:

1.Saku Koivu
2.Valeri Bure
3.Darcy Tucker
4.David Wilkie
5.Rory Fitzpatrick
6.Craig Darby
7.Martin Brochu
8.Brad Brown
9.Jim Campbell
10.Sebastien Bordeleau

1996:

1.Jose Theodore
2.David Wilkie
3.Darcy Tucker
4.Terry Ryan
5.Sebastien Bordeleau
6.Craig Rivet
7.Brad Brown
8.Craig Conroy
9.Scott Fraser
10.Jonathan Delisle

1997:

1.Terry Ryan
2.Matt Higgins
3.Mathieu Garon
4.Brad Brown
5.Adam Wiesel
6.Miloslav Guren
7.Arron Asham
8.Tomas Vokoun
9.Eric Houde
10.Jonathan Delisle

1998:

1.Mathieu Garon
2.Jason Ward
3.Jose Theodore
4.Terry Ryan
5.Tomas Vokoun
6.Matt Higgins
7.Brad Brown
8.Eric Houde
9.Miloslav Guren
10.Aaron Asham

1999:

1.Mathieu Garon
2.Jose Theodore
3.Eric Chouinard
4.Andrei Markov
5.Jason Ward
6.Matt Higgins
7.Terry Ryan
8.Iikka Mikkola
9.Miloslav Guren
10.Mike Ribeiro

2000:

1.Mathieu Garon
2.Eric Chouinard
3.Mike Ribeiro
4.Andrei Markov
5.Chris Dyment
6.Timo Vertala
7.Alexander Buturlin
8.Iikka Mikkola
9.Michael Ryder
10.Matt Higgins

2001:

1.Ron Hainsey
2.Mathieu Garon
3.Marcel Hossa
4.Eric Chouinard
5.Jozef Balej
6.Mike Ribeiro
7.Timo Vertala
8.Chris Dyment
9.Alexander Buturlin
10.Christian Larrivee

2002:

1.Mike Komisarek
2.Ron Hainsey
3.Marcel Hossa
4.Alexander Perezhogin
5.Eric Chouinard
6.Mathieu Garon
7.Duncan Milroy
8.Jozef Balej
9.Tomas Plekanec
10.Chris Dyment

2003:

1.Alexander Perezhogin
2.Ron Hainsey
3.Chris Higgins
4.Mike Komisarek
5.Mathieu Garon
6.Jozef Balej
7.Duncan Milroy
8.Tomas Plekanec
9.Michael Ryder
10.Konstantin Korneev

2004:

1.Andrei Kostitsyn
2.Mike Komisarek
3.Chris Higgins
4.Alexander Perezhogin
5.Marcel Hossa
6.Ron Hainsey
7.Cory Urquhart
8.Michael Lambert
9.Maxim Lapierre
10.Jozef Balej

2005:

1.Andrei Kostitsyn
2.Chris Higgins
3.Alexander Perezhogin
4.Yann Danis
5.Kyle Chipchura
6.Tomas Plekanec
7.Ron Hainsey
8.Marcel Hossa
9.Mark Streit
10.Maxim Lapierre

2006:

1.Carey Price
2.Guillaume Latendresse
3.Andrei Kostitsyn
4.Kyle Chipchura
5.Yann Danis
6.Alexei Yemelin
7.Mikhail Grabovski
8.Sergei Kostitsyn
9.Juraj Mikus
10.Matt D'Agostini

2007:

1.Carey Price
2.Andrei Kostitsyn
3.Mikhail Grabovski
4.Ben Maxwell
5.David Fischer
6.Sergei Kostitsyn
7.Maxim Lapierre
8.Jaroslav Halak
9.Kyle Chipchura
10.Alexei Yemelin

2008:

1.Carey Price
2.Ryan McDonagh
3.Max Pacioretty
4.PK Subban
5.David Fischer
6.Alexei Yemelin
7.Yannick Weber
8.Ben Maxwell
9.Ryan White
10.Mikhail Grabosvki

2009:

1.Max Pacioretty
2.PK Subban
3.Ryan McDonagh
4.Matt D'Agostini
5.Ben Maxwell
6.Kyle Chipchura
7.Yannick Weber
8.Danny Kristo
9.David Fischer
10.Steve Quailer

2010:

1. P.K. Subban
2. Danny Kristo
3. Louis Leblanc
4. Ryan White
5. Yannick Weber
6. Joonas Nattinen
7. Mathieu Carle
8. Mac Bennett
9. Cedrick Desjardins
10. Ben Maxwell

2011:

1. Louis Leblanc
2. Jarred Tinordi
3. Danny Kristo
4. Alexander Avtsin
5. Michael Bournival
6. Ryan White
7. Aaron Palushaj
8. Joonas Nattinen
9. Mark MacMillan
10. Brendan Gallagher

2012:

1. Nathan Beaulieu
2. Louis Leblanc
3. Jarred Tinordi
4. Brendan Gallagher
5. Aaron Palushaj
6. Michael Bournival
7. Andreas Engqvist
8. Alexander Avtsin
9. Danny Kristo
10. Patrick Holland

2013:

1. Alex Galchenyuk
2. Nathan Beaulieu
3. Jarred Tinordi
4. Sebastian Collberg
5. Brendan Gallagher
6. Charles Hudon
7. Michael Bournival
8. Patrick Holland
9. Louis Leblanc
10. Danny Kristo

2014:

1. Jacob De La Rose
2. Zach Fucale
3. Jarred Tinordi
4. Michael McCarron
5. Arturri Lehkonen
6. Sebastian Collberg
7. Charles Hudon
8. Sven Andrighetto
9. Martin Reway
10. Tim Bozon

2015:

1. Jacob De La Rose
2. Nikita Scherbak
3. Zach Fucale
4. Jarred Tinordi
5. Michael McCarron
6. Martin Reway
7. Sven Andrighetto
8. Charles Hudon
9. Michael Condon
10. Arturri Lehkonen

2016:

1. Michael McCarron
2. Noah Juulsen
3. Nikita Scherbak
4. Jacob De La Rose
5. Zach Fucale
6. Charles Hudon
7. Arturri Lehkonen
8. Lukas Vejdemo
9. Sven Andrighetto
10. Daniel Carr

2017


1. Mikael Sergachev
2. Noah Juulsen
2. Michael McCarron
4. Nikita Scherbak
5. Jacob De La Rose
6. Zach Fucale
7. Charles Hudon
8. Michael McNiven
9. Will Bitten
10 Victor Mete

2008 was an awesome prospect pool.

 

[Chili]

March 2019 Future Watch Habs List:

1. Nick Suzuki
2. Ryan Poehling
3. Alexander Romanov
4. Cayden Primeau
5. Noah Juulsen
6. Josh Brook
7. Jesse Ylonen
8. Cale Fleury
9. Jacob Olofsson
10. Joni Ikonen

Team ranking 10th (up from 28th last year)

Note : Team rankings include 21 and under NHLers which for the Habs includes Kotkaniemi and Mete

Major upgrade since last year.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

March 2019 Future Watch Habs List:

1. Nick Suzuki
2. Ryan Poehling
3. Alexander Romanov
4. Cayden Primeau
5. Noah Juulsen
6. Josh Brook
7. Jesse Ylonen
8. Cale Fleury
9. Jacob Olofsson
10. Joni Ikonen

Team ranking 10th (up from 28th last year)

Note : Team rankings include 21 and under NHLers which for the Habs includes Kotkaniemi and Mete

Major upgrade since last year.

Nice to see this. Interesting list. Only Juulsen and Fleury are playing pro within the Habs organization, so the AHL team should receive a boost next year.

Any surprises?

 

[Mrb1p]

Funny that Andrighetto has scored slightly more than Lekhonen. Lehkonen is unlucky and better defensively, and Andrighetto had MacKinnon on his line for a while, so they aren't really comparable, but the stats are interesting.

Andrighetto has 10 less points than Lekhonen ?

 

[Mrb1p]

We don't know if we have no stud LD or not yet. We have to wait on Romanov. Mete and Romanov are our only two guys I see as top 4D potential on the Left Side.

Don't sleep on Jordan Harris.

 

[Tighthead]

I remember being excited aboit Gilbert Dionne. Was expecting his brother. Of course, that was before the internet, so it was based on pure speculation.

We also had the younger and much lesser Bure and Hossa.

 

[Mrb1p]

2011 - 2016
yikes

I don't want to start big conversations about Weber, Drouin & Shaw (which are controversial but value wise I would say are close to break even) but I would say the fact that this Habs team is close to playoffs is actually a testament to MB running a pretty solid trading and pro scouting operation to be able to pickup talent like Danault, Byron, Petry and Armia for almost nothing. Then also the big Galchenyuk & Pacioretty trades this summer are looking like knockouts so far. He's had some misses for sure like Alzner but overall he's on the positive side of the ledger for trading which is the only way the roster has been filled out decently after these grim 2011-2016 drafting years. Still have to hope for better results from these 2017-2018 classes now because you can't build a cup roster just through trading, need to find some scores in the draft too which there was not much of these past years.

Not sure including 2016 in this is fair.

We picked up Sergachev, Mete, and thats with 6 total picks, 3 in the top 100, only one in the top 70. Thats a good bang for your buck draft for any team, two top four D's. MB also gave up the chance to draft guys like Debrincat, Girard, Krys, Hart, Katchouk, Klague, Lindgren, Hronek, the first three were reportedly really high on Timmins list.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Don't sleep on Jordan Harris.

Not sure about him yet. Grade B or C type that could surprise. We have plenty of these types in the pipeline

 

[Mrb1p]

Not sure about him yet. Grade B or C type that could surprise. We have plenty of these types in the pipeline

Selling him short a bit. He ranks 7th in NCAA scoring for u19 D's. He's produced at a similar pace to Bernard Docker, who was a first rounder just this summer.

 

[Chili]

Nice to see this. Interesting list. Only Juulsen and Fleury are playing pro within the Habs organization, so the AHL team should receive a boost next year.

Any surprises?

5 new names from last year's list: Suzuki, Romanov, Ylonen, Fleury and Olofsson (replacing Scherbak, Lindgren, McNiven, McCarron and Evans).

If the Habs fall out of the race, I'm interested to see if Lindgren gets some games. I would want to know if he is a serious candidate to be the backup next season or do they need to go shopping this summer. In my opinion they need someone to play around 25 games behind Price.

 

[26Mats]

Not sure including 2016 in this is fair.

We picked up Sergachev, Mete, and thats with 6 total picks, 3 in the top 100, only one in the top 70. Thats a good bang for your buck draft for any team, two top four D's. MB also gave up the chance to draft guys like Debrincat, Girard, Krys, Hart, Katchouk, Klague, Lindgren, Hronek, the first three were reportedly really high on Timmins list.

I think this was part of the reason mb was adament about not giving up either of our 2nds this year.

 

[Mrb1p]

I think this was part of the reason mb was adament about not giving up either of our 2nds this year.

I hope so.. We missed quite a few players there... We also missed on important guys in 2015 and 2014 because we gave away our 2nds... You gotta keep them.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Selling him short a bit. He ranks 7th in NCAA scoring for u19 D's. He's produced at a similar pace to Bernard Docker, who was a first rounder just this summer.

Are you saying he is a grade A prospect?

 

[Mrb1p]

Are you saying he is a grade A prospect?

I don't even know what that means. What is a grade A prospect ?

He likely goes 2nd round in a 2018 redraft.