With the Montreal Canadiens season on hiatus, we have been taking a look back at some of their past drafts. Today, we look back and grade every pick from the 2011 NHL Draft.
The Montreal Canadiens have built up a great group of prospects in the past few years. We haven’t looked back at the most recent draft because it is a little too early to make any grand proclamations about 19 or 20 year old hockey players.
So, we have been looking back at the drafts a little earlier than that. We started with the 2017 NHL Draft and have been working our way backwards. Today, we take a look at the 2011 NHL Draft.
The Canadiens were a little thin on early picks in 2011. They had a solid regular season, finishing sixth in the Eastern Conference with 96 points. This meant they would have the 17th overall pick in the first round.
They didn’t have a second round pick because they traded it to the Florida Panthers a year earlier for Dominic Moore. The Canadiens would also move their third round pick to the Winnipeg Jets for a pair of fourth round picks later the same day.
This left the Habs with a first round pick and then a long wait until the fourth round before they would select again. They did have three picks in the fourth round and then had fifth, sixth and seventh round picks as well.
Let’s take a look at who they chose and give them a grade for every pick based on where they were selected, who else was available and went shortly after them, and how much production they got from each pick.