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 2009 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 2009 NHL Draft.
The 2009 draft was held in Montreal at the Bell Centre. There was a terrific buzz in the building in the lead up to the event as Habs fans packed the building. The Habs did not have an early pick, but that didn’t stop fans from filling the arena early and making lots of noise as players came off the board and the Habs pick neared.
The 2008-09 season was the Habs centennial campaign and began with tremendous potential and anticipation. The Habs brought in Robert Lang and Alex Tanguay before the season began to load up their forwards and would trade for Mathieu Schneider to provide a boost to the defence late in the year.
The season started well but ultimately ended in disappointment as the Habs barely made the playoffs and were quickly swept in the first round by the Boston Bruins. This left them with the 18th overall selection in the first round. Their trade for Schneider included a second round pick heading to the Atlanta Thrashers and a third round coming to Montreal.
This left the Habs with no second round pick and an extra third round pick. Let’s take a look at how they did with all of those picks that year: