Montreal Canadiens: Building a Roster With Only Draft Picks

We’re taking drafting and developing to a whole new level and looking at what the Montreal Canadiens roster would look like with only homegrown talent.

Drafting and developing wins championships. That’s a philosophy that all teams, including the Montreal Canadiens, have followed. At times others would try to by-pass this step and just trade for talent, but eventually it fails. Sometimes it takes a couple of years in the lower bowl of the league to be able to draft high-ranked players. Other times, it takes a great scouting staff to find talent in the later rounds.

The Montreal Canadiens haven’t had the opportunity to draft high as much with their regular season success. Fortunately, they’ve been able to find great players at the draft. As important as drafting is, it also takes smart trades and signings to build a winner. Currently, the Montreal Canadiens have a mix of players from different origins on their projected roster.

Via Trades:

Via Signings:

Additionally, the Canadiens also have Paul Byron who was claimed off of waivers in 2015. The rest of the players on the team are home-grown talent. But what if the entire roster was made up of players on drafted by the team.

For the sake of the scenario, we’ll assume that in a year the prospects will be able to perform at the NHL level.

Forward Group

The Montreal Canadiens already have five drafted forwards on the team. Four forward lines full of home-grown talent may look something like this:

Max Pacioretty–Alex Galchenyuk–Charles Hudon

Artturi Lehkonen–Joni Ikonen–Brendan Gallagher

Jacob de La Rose–Ryan Poehling–Nikita Scherbak

Daniel Audette–Michael McCarron–Martin Reway

The nice thing about the top two lines, is that they each have scoring centers. Both Galchenyuk and Ikonen can score and make a pretty play for their wingers. If you need a recent example of Ikonen’s scoring touch, just think back to his hat-trick at the World Junior Summer Showcase.

Lehkonen has an above average shot himself, but is also not afraid to get in the dirty areas. And for some fan service, it would be pretty nice to see the Finish connection between Ikonen and Lehkonen.

Hudon is one of the few forward prospects that screams top-six talent. His speed and hockey sense would compliment his line-mates well

The third line would could serve as an effective shutdown line that can score. Poehling could develop into more of a goal scorer, but at his core, he’s a two-way center that is defensively responsible. He along with de La Rose would work well in that category. Additionally, Poehling is a good playmaker and could set up Scherbak to use that shot of his.

McCarron centering the fourth line could add a deceptive element to the roster. He’ll be able to create space for himself and his line-mates which would work to their advantage. Audette has an underrated ability to find players well which could work for Reway and his offensive-minded style.

Defence Group

The all-draftees Montreal Canadiens will have limited experience on its blue-line. There will be a total of 787 NHL games played between all six defencemen, where 784 of them are from one player. Take a guess who that is. However, this is a fantasy scenario, so we’ll ignore that for now. The three defence pairings would look something like this:

Jakub Jerabek–Brett Lernout

Mark Streit–Noah Juulsen

Victor Mete–Josh Brook

I know, Jerabek wasn’t drafted by the Habs, but I’m going to have to make an exception here. Jerabek and Lernout would make the most sense to be on the top pair. There’s actually a fair amount of Canadiens fans who believe he could find his way to play with Shea Weber this season. The dynamic nature of Jerabek’s game will be the perfect match for Lernout who is more of an aggressive and physical player. However, he has shown signs of puck-moving ability this past season in the AHL.

Although Streit has the most experience, he’ll slot in next to Juulsen. Streit can still effectively move the puck despite being 39. Additionally, that would leave Juulsen to focus on what he does best, and that’s taking care of his own end.

The bottom pair would fit the same mold as the previous two: one that is more inclined to offence with other more inclined to defence.

Goaltending

Thankfully, the Montreal Canadiens drafted their number one goalie in Carey Price back in 2005. Unfortunately, the coaching staff’s desire to have the back-up play more would be out the window if this was the team.

Speaking of back-ups, the only other goalie the Canadiens drafted was Zachary Fucale. The most pro-time he’s seen was a 42 game season in the AHL during the 2015-2016 season. He finished with a record of 16-19-4. Since then he’s struggled a bit and has found himself in the ECHL with the Brampton Beast.

Because of that, we’re going to have to cheat a little again and have Charlie Lindgren as the back-up. The Canadiens signed the goaltender out of college in 2016. Since then, he’s had success with the minor affiliate in particular this past season. Lindgren went 24-18-1 with a .914 Sv% and also played in two games with the Canadiens.

A hypothetical like this just goes to show that drafting isn’t the only way to go. It’s the most important, but it takes other forms of additions to build a team. The Montreal Canadiens have pieces from each area, and hopefully that will payoff for them in the long-run.

Next: Projecting the 2017-2018 Roster

How would you make a line-up with only Canadiens’ draft picks? Would it fair well against other teams? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

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