Captain Mountain
Formerly Captain Wolverine
- Jun 6, 2010
- 20,338
- 13,873
Would Toronto play without Ontario boys ? Almost every single players born in Ontario wants to play for the Leafs.
NJ management have made all efforts they could to get as many American boys in their line up over the years. Same in Minnesota.
Habs have made a shit job, finding, recruiting and developing Quebec born players. That's a fact !
You make it sound like its so easy to just be better at it. Lets take a look at the active Quebec players:
Active NHL Players Born in Quebec ‑ 2020-2021 Stats Leaders
Lets take a real look at the list. How many guys did they actually miss out on when they had a chance to get them? They never had a shot at Hubs. They've tried to sign Perron in the past and were willing to pay, he didn't want to play in Quebec. Bergeron was a miss, but that was 18 years ago. Letang was a miss, but the guy in his draft range they picked instead was Latendresse. Marchessault and Gourde were misses, but that was when the team and fanbase decided they didn't want short players anymore and smarter organizations swooped in. Its not a long list. and Drouin and Danault actually rank pretty highly, but one has been brow-beaten by the media and the other no one on here wants pay.
The reality is that the draft is a thing and Quebec doesn't have a large player pool to choose from. Its hard to not have a player from Ontario on your roster. You have to ignore other sources of players if you want to optimise the number of players from Quebec.
They've moved their AHL team to Quebec. They've tried to sign most top undrafted QMJHLers from Quebec. They're setting up ECHL team in Quebec. They're trying.
And the Habs don't draft or develop well from anywhere. In part because they're an old-fashioned team. And how they choose GMs probably plays a role.