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.

#5: Alex Galchenyuk

The Montreal Canadiens had a miserable season in 2011-12. They were firing coaches, replacing them with a sitting duck behind the bench, trading players in the middle of games and generally just losing a lot.

When that happens, typically a team is rewarded with a high pick in the NHL Draft. That is exactly what happened for the Habs in the 2012 draft. They had the third overall pick and after Nail Yakupov and Ryan Murray were selected, they had a difficult choice.

Rankings differed on who was the next best player as Alex Galchenyuk played just three regular season games after a knee injury. Filip Forsberg, Mikhail Grigorenko and Teuvo Teravainen offered the chance to pick a highly skilled forward from Europe. Griffin Reinhart, Matt Dumba, Hampus Lindholm, Jacob Trouba, Derrick Pouliot and Morgan Rielly were all highly ranked defenders.

As well all know, the Habs settled on Galchenyuk. He had a few flashes where he displayed his skill with the Habs, but didn’t have the hockey sense to fill the centre role that he was penciled into when he was drafted. The Habs ultimately traded him for Max Domi just before his career crashed. He has played for three teams in the past two seasons and will be lucky to extend his NHL career beyond this season.

He has 320 points in 574 career games which isn’t terrible, but he was expected to be the first line centre of the future for the Canadiens. He had a few good years with the Habs, but fell far from reaching his potential when he was selected with the third overall pick.

#4: Nikita Scherbak

Scherbak was a soiled Russian winger playing for the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL when the Habs drafted him. He was expected to develop into a top six scoring winger for the Canadiens after they took him with the 26th overall selection in the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft.

Scherbak became a good scorer at the AHL level, putting up 71 points in 92 games during his final two years in the Habs minor league system. Things didn’t exactly translate to the NHL level for him.

Scherbak played a total of 29 games in a Habs sweater and scored five goals and seven points. He was claimed on waivers by the Los Angeles Kings and then scored one goal in eight games in California before being waived again. This time no one bothered to claim him and take him for free. He scored three goals in 31 KHL games this season.

#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.