The Montreal Canadiens have a great group of prospects. Not all of them are on a straight upward trajectory. These three saw their value drop off this season.
The Montreal Canadiens have one of the best groups of prospects in the National Hockey League. They have focused on adding as many picks at the past few NHL Drafts as possible and have quickly built up a great pool of young players.
At the 2018 NHL Draft, the Habs made 11 draft picks. A year later, they added ten new prospects to the system. This year, they are hosting the NHL Draft and right now hold 14 picks. That would be 35 new prospects added to the system in three drafts, which is an incredible boost to any team’s prospect pipeline.
Of course, not all 35 players that they choose are going to turn in to productive NHL players. In fact, most of them will not. That is just the way the draft works. Early first round picks are pretty sure bets, but once you get into the second round, the chances of a player turning into a star are not very high.
That is why this strategy of adding as many players as possible is the best way to build a great prospect pool. When you can’t be sure that even a second round pick will help the team in the future, you basically just add as many lottery tickets as possible and some of them are bound to turn into NHL players in the future.
A few days ago, we looked at the three players in the Habs system that improved their stock the most this season. These weren’t the Habs best prospects, just three players who look like much better prospects today than they did back in the summer.
So, today, we are taking a look at the opposite. Here, we are taking a look at the three players that unfortunately, have seen their stock drop off the most in the past year. Again, this doesn’t mean these players are terrible now and have no chance of making the Habs in the future. It just means they looked much closer to sure things a year ago than they do today after a disappointing season.