Montreal Canadiens: Cam Hillis Dominating OHL Just Like Nick Suzuki A Year Ago

The Montreal Canadiens drafted Cam Hillis two years ago. After a disappointing season, Hillis is putting up numbers just like another star prospect did for the Habs a year ago.

The Montreal Canadiens took a unique approach to the 2018 NHL Draft. When teams almost always take the “best player available” during the NHL Draft, the Canadiens were clearly narrowing their search that weekend to the “best player available that plays the center ice position.”

The Canadiens headed into that weekend with 11 draft picks. General Manager Marc Bergevin and draft guru Trevor Timmins drafted seven centers with those 11 picks. They were obviously looking to fill an organizational need that was long overdue. The Habs lacked true depth at the center ice position for decades and finally decided to do whatever it took to fill that need.

They started out by taking Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the third overall pick. Most draft pundits had a couple of wingers – Filip Zadina and Brady Tkachuk to name a few – ranked ahead of Kotkaniemi. However, the big Finnish prospect has the ability to plat center so the Canadiens went that route.

In the second round, the Canadiens would take right winger Jesse Ylonen and Alexander Romanov. With their next eight picks, the Canadiens would take six more centers. It’s rare that a team will target the same position over and over all weekend long at a draft, but the Canadiens had a hole to fill and were clearly looking to hit a home run with a later pick on a position of need.

One of those later picks was Cam Hillis and he is starting to look like a home run. Hillis has a June birthday, which means he played his entire draft year of 2017-18 with the Guelph Storm as a 17 year old. He played extremely well for such a young player in the Ontario Hockey League, scoring 20 goals and 59 points in 60 games.

The following season, Hillis was plagued by injuries and couldn’t find any consistency when he was in the lineup, trying to get back to 100%. He played just 33 games in total and scored ten goals and 22 points. The Storm made a championship run but Hillis was held to just two playoff games, still fighting nagging injuries.

Hillis is making up for lost time this season with the Storm. He was named team captain and has been leading the team on and off the ice. He started the year slowly, once again trying to get to full speed after missing so much time. He scored just one goal and three points in his first seven games.

Since then, Hillis has been unbelievable. He has 42 points in his previous 23 games played and has been charging up the scoring charts in the OHL. He now sits in a tie for tenth in the league in scoring.

Hillis lighting up scoreboards across Ontario while wearing a Guelph Storm jersey may seem a bi familiar. It is reminding some of Nick Suzuki‘s scoring exploits last season after the Canadiens acquired him from the Vegas Golden Knights.

In fact, Hillis has 45 points in 30 games this season, which is exactly how many points and games played Suzuki registered with the Owen Sound Attack before a midseason trade almost exactly one year ago.

Now, it’s a long jump from where Hillis is now to where Suzuki is today. We can’t predict the future and see where Hillis will be in a year from now. However, we can see that today, Hillis is exactly where Suzuki was a year ago and that is exciting. It is starting to look like the Habs unusual strategy at the 2018 NHL Draft is going to pay off.