The Montreal Canadiens season did not go well, but they appear to have a very bright future.
While the team already secured the best odds heading into the draft lottery, even before adding another superstar prospect, the cupboards are pretty full.
After a dreadful 2017-18 season, the Canadiens management team clearly put an emphasis on adding as many draft picks as they could get their hands on. It has led to a tremendously deep prospect pool with a handful of really high end players.
Logan Mailloux and Kaiden Guhle are the team’s two most recent first round picks and they have all the tools to be an incredible pairing in the future for the Canadiens. Guhle is a big, shutdown defender who can also hold his own offensively on the left side, while Mailloux is a super skilled playmaker, skater and defender with a booming shot from the right side.
But their forward prospects look just as good.
Riley Kidney for example, who was a second round pick in 2021, added an assist in a 2-1 win last night. It was his 70th assist of the season and when add in his 30 goals, the Habs prospect reached triple digits in points.
Kidney’s 70 assists lead the league, and his 100 points put him in a tie for 5th in the QMJHL in scoring this season. What makes this incredible season even more impressive is that Kidney just turned 19 a month ago. That means he still has one more year in the QMJHL before he is old enough to be eligible to play in the AHL.
What’s even more impressive about this for the Canadiens is that Kidney is the second highest scoring Canadiens prospect in his 18 year old season in the QMJHL this season.
Joshua Roy has been even better than Kidney, scoring 47 goals and 113 points in 63 games for the Sherbrooke Phoenix. Roy was a 5th round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft and is showing he could be a big time scoring threat at the NHL level in the near future.
The pair of scorers would have been joined by Xavier Simoneau as Habs prospects to score 100 points in the QMJHL this season if not for injury. Simoneau has scored 79 points in just 46 games this season for the Charlottetown Islanders.
All three players will have their regular seasons wrap up this weekend. After that, all of them are on contending teams with intentions on going deep in the postseason. After that… it won’t be long before a few of them are filling NHL nets instead of QMJHL nets.
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