Montreal Canadiens: Clock Ticking For Habs to Sign Four Prospects

The Montreal Canadiens have one week left to make a decision on four prospects or they will go back into the 2020 NHL Draft.

The Montreal Canadiens have been quite busy at the past two NHL Draft’s. At the 2018 draft they selected 11 new prospects and a year later they added another ten players to the prospect pool. It has left them with terrific depth at all positions among their prospects, but they do have one problem.

They say you can have too much of a good thing, but in this case, the NHL won’t allow it. Each team in the league can only have 50 players under contract at any time and can only hold up to 90 players on their reserve list at a given time. That means you can’t just sell all your good players for later drat picks and load up on dozens of prospects several years in a row.

You simply wouldn’t be able to sign all of them. The Canadiens certainly aren’t hitting the ceiling in these limits right now, but they will be getting close. Teams always want to leave some wiggle room with the number of players they have under contract in case they want to add a few players at the deadline. It is always easier to add if you don’t have to ship out as many contracts as are arriving. It just makes a complicated process a little simpler.

So, with the Habs making 21 selections in the past two drafts, and currently holding 14 selections for the 2020 NHL Draft, they have to start being more cautious with the prospects they sign. Many players that are drafted by NHL teams just don’t develop quickly enough to become NHL players. What the Habs can’t afford to do now is sign too many players who are destined to be career AHLers.

That is why they have a quarter of unsigned players right now. They couldn’t just pounce and sign them to an entry-level contract as soon as they went on a hot streak. They have waited until the last minute and now we will wait and see who they choose to keep and who gets sent back to the draft. We won’t have to wait much longer.

The Canadiens have until June 1 to make a decision on four of their drafted players.

Three of those players, Allan McShane, Cole Fonstad and Samuel Houde, playing in the CHL and were drafted in 2018. Arvid Henriksson is a 22 year old Swedish defenceman who was drafted in the 7th round of the 2016 NHL Draft. He is a huge defender who had two points in 37 games of NCAA Hockey this season. I think his chances of being signed in the next week are pretty slim.

The trio of CHL players are interesting prospects.

Houde played very well for the Chicoutimi Sagueneens this season, breaking out offensively with 19 goals and 52 points in 44 games. He is a defensively aware, versatile forward who improved his points per game each season in the QMJHL. He could probably help the Laval Rocket down the road, but his potential to be a regular NHL contributor probably aren’t high enough to warrant using a contract up on him.

McShane is kind of in a similar boat. He played for the Oshawa Generals of the OHL this season and had similar production to Houde. The 20 year old centre scored 23 goals and 67 points in 62 games this season which is not bad at all. The problem is, he basically had the same points per game two years ago before the Habs even drafted him. Has his game gotten much better in the past two years? Sure, he has improved in some areas but his production hasn’t changed. He is not likely to have tremendous growth in the next couple years so I’m guessing he isn’t signed either.

Fonstad is the player out of this bunch I like the most. He has played on great teams in the WHL, but he has no problem being among the top scorers on those squads. He had 73 points in 72 games in 2017-18 before the Habs drafted him. Since then, he had 73 points in 67 games which isn’t a big jump but then he scored 74 points in 60 games this season. Again, not a huge leap which kind of puts him in the same category as McShane, but Fonstad plays left wing where the Rocket look to be a little thin and can move up the lineup when injuries occur and play with good scorers.

I think if Fonstad was going to be signed, he probably would be by now. However, out of this group of four, I think he has the best chance of any to get a deal in the next week. If not, the Habs could lose the rights to all of them.