Canadiens: Three First Round Projects To Pursue In The Off-Season

I think it’s fair to say that the NHL Draft is a bit of a shot in the dark when it comes to player potential, especially for the Montreal Canadiens.

While GMs, owners, and coaches alike like to believe they have a player and his specifics nailed down, this isn’t always the case. In many ways, most fan bases and organizations were spoiled by the selections of Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews first overall in the 2015 and 2016 Drafts respectively. While franchise players come along every so often, Matthews and McDavid are simply a different story, reaching scoring peaks not seen since the days of the 1980s live puck era.

However, for every McDavid and Matthews in this seemingly never-ending professional hockey landscape, there’s similarly a Patrik Stefan, Alexandre Daigle, and Brent Krahn to offset that. Sadly, there’s few places where this is more evident than Montreal, but the future does seem a bit brighter nowadays in spite of an all time low of a season in 2021-22, after the Canadiens officially received the first overall pick in the 2022 Draft Lottery on Tuesday.

Putting aside the Matt Higgins, Jason Ward’s, Eric Chouinard’s, Terry Ryan’s, Lindsay Vallis’s, Michael McCarron’s, Jarred Tinordi’s, Alex Galchenyuk’s, or whatever other once top prospect turned draft bust the Canadiens ended up with, the emergence of Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki as an electrifying one-two punch, plus the potential of Kingston Frontenacs star Shane Wright joining the team at first overall, has led most to believe things seem to be changing for the better, at least in the immediate future.

With that in mind, this current NHL season has (aside from the ridiculous scoring totals) pointed out a number of once-top prospects who have unfortunately fallen to the waist side, a number of which I don’t see as being entirely too far gone just yet. So with that being said, here’s a look at three first round projects the Montreal Canadiens could pursue, this off-season.