Montreal Canadiens: Five Worst Draft Picks Since 2000

The Montreal Canadiens have made a few picks they would like to have a mulligan on in the past few years. Here, we look at the five worst draft picks the Habs made since 2000.

The Montreal Canadiens were scheduled to host the 2020 NHL Draft at the Bell Centre in about two months. With the league on hiatus and the world as we know it on pause, that draft will not be taking place as usual. There will be a 2020 NHL Draft, but it won’t look anything like it has in the past.

Whenever it does take place, and whatever it looks like, the Habs will have plenty of opportunities to improve their team. They currently hold 14 picks in the seven round event and with general manager Marc Bergevin‘s penchant for making moves at the draft, he could add even more before the dust settles.

This gives the team many chances to add an impact player. We have seen great players coming out of every round of the draft lately. Obviously it is easier to find a future star in the first few picks, but the Habs were able to add Jake Evans, Brett Stapley and Cayden Primeau with recent seventh round picks.

All three could be draft steals. You don’t really expect much with a seventh round pick, but somehow the Habs have been adding players that can make some sort of impact late in the draft. Getting a fourth line centre like Evans with a seventh rounder is excellent value.

Of course, getting a similar player in the first round, like when the Habs drafted Kyle Chipchura, isn’t exactly great value. It’s better than nothing, but you want your first round picks to turn into top six forwards or top four defenceman to get real value out of that pick.

We have seen the Habs add great players late, and we have seen them turn early picks into next to nothing. With no games to talk about lately, we have started to put together some “Top 5” posts about various topics. Today, we take a look back at the five worst draft picks the Habs made in the past 20 years.

#3: Michael McCarron

The Canadiens management team couldn’t wipe the smiles off their faces when they were walking to the podium to select Michael McCarron. The 25th overall selection in the 2013 draft was a huge forward who didn’t show a lot of scoring punch, but hey, he was tall and the Habs had just been bullied into an opening round playoff loss to the Ottawa Senators.

No one could ever quite figure out if McCarron was a centre or a winger, as he bounced back and forth in the OHL, AHL and in NHL camps. He never found a position or a role with the Habs that lasted very long. He played a total of 69 NHL games in his career thus far and scored eight points.

That’s not great value, even late in the first round. It looks even worse when you look back and see that Shea Theodore went with the very next selection and has turned into a terrific defenceman for the Vegas Golden Knights.

#2: Louis Leblanc

Another player that we couldn’t figure out if he was a centre or a winger. He was supposed to be a “safe” pick in the draft because his hockey sense and defensive game were so strong he was sure to fit into the bottom six of an NHL lineup in a “worst case scenario.”

Well, the Habs realized something worse than their own projected worst case scenario as Leblanc retired from hockey in 2016 with more games played for the Montreal Juniors of the QMJHL, where he spent one season, that he played for the Montreal Canadiens.

Leblanc was selected with the 18th overall selection in the 2009 NHL Draft. It was quite a moment when someone that grew up in Montreal was selected by the Canadiens inside the Bell Centre in the first round of the draft. The New York Rangers would select Chris Kreider with the very next pick and he has played almost 500 more games than Leblanc already and just signed a long-term deal.

#1: David Fischer

If the Montreal Canadiens could go back in time and change just one draft pick, this one would be in contention. Now, they would likely swap out Doug Wickenhesier for Denis Savard if they could undo any pick, but taking David Fischer with the 20th selection in the 2006 NHL Draft has proven to be a terrible choice.

Fischer is a big, right-shot defenceman and they are hard to come by in the NHL. Well, ones that can also play top-four minutes are hard to come by. He was playing high school hockey in Minnesota when the Habs took him in the first round of the draft.

Fischer would go on to play four years of college hockey for the University of Minnesota, and he maxed out at 14 points in his sophomore season. He would not sign a contract with the Canadiens when he graduated from college and played two years in the ECHL before moving on to Europe to continue his playing career.

I don’t think the Habs expected Fischer to be the captain of a team in Klagenfurt when they selected him in 2006. Making the selection even worse is that a future superstar was waiting patiently to be drafted when Fischer was chosen.

Just two picks later, the Philadelphia Flyers selected Claude Giroux who scored 103 points for the Gatineau Olympiques in 69 games before adding 20 more points in 17 playoff games. He played in the QMJHL, which is a league the Habs obviously scout heavily, but instead they went with the Minnesota high school defenceman.

Things would have been different in Montreal over the past decade if Claude Giroux was in town and Fischer was never part of the equation. So much different, that it makes this decision the worst one made by the Montreal Canadiens at the draft in the past 20 years.