Montreal Canadiens deep in youth and talent at minor league level

[HF Article]

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Last season, the Hamilton Bulldogs finished near the bottom of the AHL and failed to make the Calder Cup playoff, a fate similar to their parent club, the Montreal Canadiens. New General Manager, Marc Bergevin decided to bring in a completely new Bulldogs' coaching staff, adding a good mix of NHL and junior experience with head coach Sylvain Lefebvre, assistants Donald Dufresne, Ron Wilson, and goaltending coach Vincent Riendeau.



The Bulldogs have struggled early in the 2012-13 season, with injuries to top forward prospects Louis Leblanc, Blake Geoffrion, and Aaron Palushaj. Consequentially the team has struggled and is now among the bottom-ranked teams in the league.… read more



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[Marc the Habs Fan]

Bad timing for this article...

 

[Roulin]

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Berger was reassigned to Wheeling in the ECHL on December 4th and hopefully he can regain his offensive confidence from his junior days by playing more regularly.

Berger chose not to report to Wheeling, I believe he's now in Switzerland.

 

[Habaneros]

I remember not many years ago,habs where said to be so deep too,didnt pan out....

 

[Agnostic]

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Last season, the Hamilton Bulldogs finished near the bottom of the AHL and failed to make the Calder Cup playoff, a fate similar to their parent club, the Montreal Canadiens. New General Manager, Marc Bergevin decided to bring in a completely new Bulldogs' coaching staff, adding a good mix of NHL and junior experience with head coach Sylvain Lefebvre, assistants Donald Dufresne, Ron Wilson, and goaltending coach Vincent Riendeau.



The Bulldogs have struggled early in the 2012-13 season, with injuries to top forward prospects Louis Leblanc, Blake Geoffrion, and Aaron Palushaj. Consequentially the team has struggled and is now among the bottom-ranked teams in the league.… read more



More...

This organization is deep in something but it isn't talent. Not a lot of future career NHL games going to be played by that roster, at least by the forwards.

 

[Sterling Archer]

Finishing near the bottom and drafting as many quality prospects as we did really helped this year. It's easy to see how teams like Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago etc rebuilt after finishing at the bottom for so many years. Hopefully it won't take us as long as we've done pretty good this far.

Price
Patches
PK
Gally
Collberg
Leblanc
Tinordi
Beaulieu
Gallagher
Etc. not bad and some good young talent here and on the way. Wouldn't mind 1 or 2 more top end prospects but the blocks for a solid foundation seem to be in place. Should be the beginning of a bright future.

 

[gusfring]

Aside from Gally, we are woefully lacking up front.

 

[Undertakerqc]

Aside from Gally, we are woefully lacking up front.

Well there is Gallagher and Kristo who are on the way. Collberg and Bozon i have some hopes for as well. Plus nthis year's draft we have 3 second round draft picks (Calgary, Nashville) to go with our first round draft pick in a really deep draft. Things are looking up. If we could only stink up the joint this year, it would really help.

 

[gusfring]

Well there is Gallagher and Kristo who are on the way. Collberg and Bozon i have some hopes for as well. Plus nthis year's draft we have 3 second round draft picks (Calgary, Nashville) to go with our first round draft pick in a really deep draft. Things are looking up. If we could only stink up the joint this year, it would really help.

Those guys are all average prospects. Each with deficiencies in their games.

 

[Roulin]

Aside from Gally, we are woefully lacking up front.

Galchenyuk is promising too

Those guys are all average prospects. Each with deficiencies in their games.

On a more serious note, I don't know what more you'd want from Gallagher. He seems to still be developping on an upwards trajectory, seems like a sure NHL'er to me.

 

[Habs13]

Aside from Gally, we are woefully lacking up front.

And S.Collburg

 

[Myron Gaines*]

I remember not many years ago,habs where said to be so deep too,didnt pan out....

We had a bunch of safe prospects who would make the NHL. There's definitely more upside in general this time around IMO.

This year's draft will be so important for the organization, we truly have a chance to surround Galchenyuk with some high end talent for many years to come.

I'm hoping we draft high and Bergevin is able to get us a second first round pick.

 

[tinyzombies]

We had a bunch of safe prospects who would make the NHL. There's definitely more upside in general this time around IMO.

This year's draft will be so important for the organization, we truly have a chance to surround Galchenyuk with some high end talent for many years to come.

I'm hoping we draft high and Bergevin is able to get us a second first round pick.

I'm not as optimistic. Looks like the same minor leagues we always have - small, skill, "two-way" guys.

I put more of my hopes in Galchenyuk, Pacioretty, Subban, Price attracting UFA's and of Bergevin letting Timmins do his thing without interference (or being on the same page).

 

[Odelein24]

I think it feels like we havent gone anywhere because so many of our picks and prospects were traded away the last 5-7 years. With this year's haul at the draft, we have just started to climb out of the rot the organization was trapped in.

No one should be surprised that the bulldogs forwards are underwhelming, they have:

1. Early injuries to "vets" (Leblanc, Geoffrion, Palushaj)
2. Unimpressive AHL signings.
3. Incredibly green defense corps.
4. AHL on hard mode due to lock out.
5. Focus on drafting defencemen in previous years.

IMO we will see more of a focus on drafting forwards now, as our last draft has shown (Gally, Collberg, Bozon, Hudon). I believe we will draft forward heavy in the next draft as well.

The excitement from the bulldogs this year is a defense corps that has what looks to be 2-3 guys who will be MINIMUM top 6 D in the NHL. (Tinordi, Beaulieu, Ellis)

IMO you build a team from the net out because your goaltender takes the longest to develop, followed by your defencemen and then your forwards. We have our blue chip goaltender in Carey Price.
We have a defense that will be lead by another blue chipper in Subban (McD should be the other leader dammit).
And we now look like we're building a forward corp which will be lead possibly by Patches and/or Gally.

People forget that drafting is but 1 of 3 parts to building a winner. The other parts being trades and free agent signings.

I like Berg, he exudes a level of intelligence, confidence and passion that PG could only hope to dream of.

 

[Ubercron9000*]

I remember not many years ago,habs where said to be so deep too,didnt pan out....

price,pacioretty and subban say otherwise.

Aside from Gally, we are woefully lacking up front.

We have gallagher who is number one in scoring in hamilton and is his first season in the ahl.

I don`t know why some are complaining not everyone has 3 superstars in there prospect pool every year. We have 3 prospects in tinordi, gallagher and galchenyuk who are the most promising. That is pretty good and we still have leblanc and beaulieu!

We also have this years draft which is pretty exciting who knows who we will pick up!