Montreal Canadiens Should Claim Noah Juulsen

Montreal Canadiens first round picks haven’t all panned out that great over the past decade.

Nathan Beaulieu, Alex Galchenyuk and Jesperi Kotkaniemi are three of their finest first round picks dating back to 2008, which tells you they haven’t found many stars in the earliest round of the NHL Draft.

Cole Caufield and Kaiden Guhle could buck this trend and, oh yeah, there was that Mikhail Sergachev pick, but it hasn’t been nearly as bountiful as it should have been.

Noah Juulsen was another player that looked like he was going to reverse this curse for a short period of time. He was taken with the 26th overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft and after two years of seasoning in the Western Hockey League, he made his NHL debut in the 2017-18 season and fit right in.

He is a big defender at 6’2″ and just over 200 pounds and he plays a fairly physical and smart defensive game while bringing some puck moving abilities to the ice as well. He really looked like he would become a second pairing two-way defensive defenceman at the very worst.

He was essentially what Kaiden Guhle is right now. Tons of potential, good size, decent skater, not overpowering like Shea Weber but tough and physical and enough offensive ability to get the puck out of the defensive zone.

Then the injuries hit.

Juulsen played 54 games in the 2017-18 season, split between the Laval Rocket and Montreal Canadiens. In 2018-19 he played a total of just 24 games, then 13 the following year.

Last season, he was placed on waivers before the year began as the team hoped he would get to the minors and play for a consistent period to develop. Unfortunately he was picked up by the Florida Panthers, who didn’t really have room for him on their NHL roster either.

They already featured Aaron Ekblad, Mac Weegar, Keith Yandle, Radko Gudas, Anton Stralman, Gustav Forsling, Markus Nuttivaara and would then add Brandon Montour as well.

Juulsen stayed healthy all year for the first time, but he only played four games with the Panthers and was sent down to the AHL for a five game conditioning stint.

Today, the 24 year old finds himself on waivers once again. This time, it should be the Canadiens scooping up their former first round pick.

There doesn’t appear to be a ton of room for Juulsen on the roster at the moment, but that can change in a hurry. The team lost Juulsen in addition to Victor Mete on waivers last season and then Cale Fleury in the expansion draft. That’s a lot of young, just about NHL ready defenders all at the same time.

If everyone stays healthy, Juulsen falls behind Jeff Petry and David Savard on the right side of the defence depth chart. He would be left to battle with the likes of Brett Kulak, Sami Niku and Chris Wideman for ice time as the team’s number six defender.

Of course, everyone doesn’t stay healthy for long and it looks like Niku was injured last night on a hit from behind. Joel Edmundson is also yet to skate with the team at training camp so they could be down two defenders already. The Canadiens used 11 defencemen in a 56 game shortened season last year and are going to use as many this season.

Adding Juulsen now would give them a little extra depth on their blue line. If, and that’s a big if, everyone remains healthy, Juulsen may find himself on waivers again in the future. But if not, the team could definitely use Juulsen’s size and skating in the lineup.

The team is two injured defencemen away from having Xavier Ouellet in the lineup, and he did not look good in training camp. Adding free depth in the form of a Canadiens first round pick from six years ago is a no-brainer.