Make me laugh when i hear some interview about the Rocket in which they talk about it being a young team.
They might be young, but their youth was not even quality youth with high nhl potential at that point
Now with Kotkaniemi, Peohling, Fleury, Primeau being reassing to Laval they have some prospect who should be NHL player. It wasn't the case not so long ago.
When you look at Belleville. Our 2 first line are all propesct with NHL potential. Some with higher potential then other, of course.
To be fair with Montreal's prospect pool. I believe most are not pros yet. Still, I believe that their pool is a little overhype. But that's only my opinion and i'm not a good evaluater anyway.
I guess it's the big market effect. I was listening on the radio last night and they were bragging on having the 2nd best pool (according to that Wheeler guy) despite having Kotkaniemi and Suzuki as graduates! Animators are desperately trying to sell hope to a tired fanbase as they could miss the playoffs for the 4th time in 5 years (and haven't won a Cup in soon 27 years). Many Habs fans have been raised by nostalgics shoving down their throat how the Canadiens are the Yankees of hockey so of course expectations are always a bit too high. Since the hockey has grown onto a major sports and money have been invested, Habs now have much more competition than where they were winning Cups in a 6 -12 teams league.
The prospects in Laval are
Jake Evans (23) (similar value as Jonathan Davidsson?)
Noah Juulsen (23) (similar value as Max Lajoie?)
Otto Leskinen (23) (similar value as Ole Alsing?)
Lukas Vejdemo (24) (similar value as Parker Kelly?)
Cale Fleury (21) (similar value as Christian Jaros?)
Cayden Primeau (similar value as Joey Daccord?)
Josh Brook (20)
Ryan Poehling (21)
None of them is doing very impressive. Evans (soon 24 y/o) with the best pace at 0.71 PPG. Everyone else is below 0.5 PPG and yet they have some very good/experienced vets in Varone, Barber, Hudon, Belzile (injured though), Ouellet, Peca, Dauphin, Folin, Weise, Alzner, Kinkaid... A LOT of NHL experience while Belleville do it on the strenght of their prospect.
Yeah sure, Habs best prospects haven't turned pro yet but I made a comparison with the 2 pools lately. My conclusion was I take the Sens pool quite comfortably.
They have Caufield? We have Batherson
They have Harris, Romanov, Struble? We have Brannstrom, Thomson and JBD
They have Poehling? we have Norris who IMO will be easily better
They have Primeau? We have Daccord, Sogaard, Mandolese, Gustvasson (NET advantage)
They have Brook, Norlinder, Fleury? We have Wolanin, Jaros, Lajoie, Tychonick...
They have Ylonen, Hillis, Fonstad? We have Logan Brown, Formenton, Balcers, Abramov, Pinto, Chlapik, Crookshank, Gruden, etc (that's where our pool trumps theirs IMO)
B-Sens - Belleville 2019-2020 Season Part 2
Looking at this, I have no idea how you could rank that pool above the Sens. That's not what performance/stats suggest at the very least.