The Montreal Canadiens have a plethora of picks in the 2020 NHL Draft. Could we see them move into the top ten?
The Montreal Canadiens have been stockpiling picks for the 2020 NHL Draft for a few years. The first pick that they acquired from another team for this year’s draft was over two years ago when they took on Steve Mason’s contract, but also received Joel Armia and a 4th round pick in 2020 from the Winnipeg Jets.
General Manager Marc Bergevin didn’t stop there. He continued to pile up picks for this draft and at one time the Canadiens held 14 selections. They have moved three of them out, but still have 11 bullets in the chamber for the annual event.
When the 2019-20 season was paused, it appeared the Habs first pick would be in the top ten of the draft. They had the 9th worst record in the league, and depending on the lottery results, could have fallen a little further, but were extremely likely to stay inside the top ten.
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Then, the return to play rules were announced and the Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in the play-in series. This pushed the Habs into the postseason, but also dropped their pick from 9th to 16th. However, if Bergevin really wants to move up, he has the tools to find his way back to 9th or 10th.
We don’t often see top ten picks being moved on draft day. But we have seen a few trades of the 11th pick recently.
In 2019, the Arizona Coyotes (not knowing they were about to lose future picks for a few weeks of Taylor Hall and for getting caught cheating) moved up in the draft. They traded the 14th and 45th overall selections to acquire the 11th overall pick from the Philadelphia Flyers.
(Both teams foolishly passed on Cole Caufield to take defencemen, but that’s fine. Right, Habs fans?)
In 2016, we saw a similar trade. The Ottawa Senators moved up from the 12th to the 11th pick and it cost them the 80th overall pick. So, a third round pick just to move up one spot.
That sounds costly, but it might be worth it for the Habs in this year’s draft. The way I see it playing out, there is a clear top ten in this draft. We all know Alexis Lafreniere is going first overall. Tim Stutzle and Quinton Byfield will likely go with the next two picks. Jamie Drysdale, Lucas Raymond, Alex Holtz, Cole Perfetti, Marco Rossi, Yaroslav Askarov and Jake Sanderson are the likeliest players to be taken in the top ten.
Now, it is the NHL Draft so it isn’t easy to predict what teams will do. Anton Lundell, Jack Quinn and even defenders like Kaiden Guhle could surprisingly be taken a little earlier than expected. But if they are, that means one of the aforementioned “top ten” will drop.
This is when it would make a lot of sense for the Canadiens to try and move up to the 10th pick. If a player like Rossi or Holtz slips a little bit and is available at ten, the Canadiens need to have the Winnipeg Jets on the phone to see if they are willing to listen to a swap of picks.
The Jets have traded away a number of picks in the past three years. They don’t have third or fourth round picks this year. Maybe they would be willing to move from 10th overall to 16th overall if the Habs also offer them second, third and fourth round picks.
The Canadiens have three picks in the second round and three picks in the fourth round. Even after making a trade like this they would pick 10th overall, twice in the second round and twice in the fourth round and have made five of the first 109 picks.
The Minnesota Wild pick 9th and are starting a bit of a youth movement. It’s likely that they will make their pick, but maybe if the Habs offer a similar package they will be fine with moving down to 16th and adding a few picks for early Wednesday morning.
It will be almost impossible for the Canadiens to move any higher than that. We just don’t see the top five picks traded at the NHL Draft. It is really rare a top ten pick moves, but if it does it is usually just so the team moves down a little bit and adds some later picks.
If the Canadiens see a player they really like sliding to 9th or 10th, they have the tools to move up and grab a better prospect than they are going to select at 16th.