The Montreal Canadiens former management team took a lot of criticism for their draft record.
Who you consider that Marc Bergevin and Trevor Timmins teamed up to draft Alex Galchenyuk, Michael McCarron, Nikita Scherbak and Noah Juulsen with their first four first round draft picks, the criticism is deserved.
If any of those names look familiar, you must be keeping a close eye on the waiver wire over the past few seasons.
But, it appears Bergevin and Timmins started to figure things out after a few years. Ryan Poehling if an upgrade on the aforementioned first round picks, and Mikhail Sergachev was a terrific selection, they just should have kept him. Recently, the Habs have picked up Kaiden Guhle and Cole Caufield with first round picks and they look like great additions to the organization.
Logan Mailloux was certainly a controversial choice, but he can play hockey a lot better than Scherbak, and McCarron.
The first round picks are one thing, but a couple of later picks might make the 2021 NHL Draft go down as one of Bergevin’s best.
Riley Kidney, a skilled two-way centre was drafted in the second round and Joshua Roy was not taken until the fifth round. But the pair just wrapped up excellent regular seasons in the QMJHL.
Roy played his final game of the season on Sunday afternoon and completed a tremendous season with a bang. He scored a hat trick against the Val d’Or Foreurs giving him 51 goals on the season. More importantly, it brought him to 119 points on the year, which is three ahead of William Dufour, making Roy the QMJHL scoring champion.
Kidney was not far off, completing the season with exactly 100 points. That makes him the 7th highest scorer in the league, but his 70 assists were the most by any player in the QMJHL this season.
Roy’s 51 goals were fourth in the league and he was just two assists back of Kidney for the league lead in assists with 68.
It was an incredible offensive display from a couple of players who are in just their 18 year old Junior seasons. That means neither play is eligible to play in the AHL next season because they will be playing their 19 year old season.
After such dominating performances out of both of them, it will be interesting to see how much more they can do next season. Or, if they can push to make the NHL roster as teenagers.
At the very least, they should be getting fitted for Team Canada gear for the 2023 World Juniors.
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