5 Players The Canadiens Would Be Wise To Target After Round 1 Of NHL Draft
As the 2022 NHL Draft approaches, let’s take a look at five players who would make interesting selections for the Montreal Canadiens beyond the first round.
As I have spent a full year scouting the 2022 class, something I will do even more for the 2023 class as I got the gig as the OHL scout at Dobber Prospects, I figured I could write up a piece which introduces five players likely to be available in the later rounds of the draft who I have taken a strong liking to over the course of this season and the Canadiens would be wise to select.
I will also throw in some honourable mentions at the end, as there have just been too many prospects whose games I have grown fond of. In order to stay up to date with all my takes on prospects and my soon-to-be-published top-100 rankings, feel free to follow me on Twitter @high_sebastian.
1. Lane Hutson, LD, USNTDP, 5’8″, 158 lbs, (60g: 10g, 63p), Rounds 2-4.
I already know I’m going to get three types of comments regarding my inclusion of Lane Hutson here.
- He’s way too small to make it in the NHL, the Canadiens need size to be competitive, not tiny defencemen!
- He’s a left defenceman, the Canadiens already have a tonne of those, draft other positions.
- Hutson is far too skilled to be available in the later rounds, why are you listing him here?
And to that I’d say:
- No, the Canadiens need good players to be competitive, and if Lane Hutson hits, you’re looking at a Quinn Hughes-type player with extremely high-end offensive skills, playmaking ability, and agility; that’s an upside you can’t ignore, no matter the stature.
- Same as above minus the stature comment.
- Lane Hutson isn’t just small, he is as slight a player as you’re going to see in the NHL draft, among all notable prospects available in the 2022 class, only a handful weigh less than Hutson, he’s going to fall relative to where he should go based on his skill profile. Only 16 NHL teams interviewed him at the combine. I’d be shocked if he went in the first round, and surprised if he went in the second. I think round 3 is where we see a team step up and take the risk of selecting him.
Now with those necessary questions answered, let me introduce to you Lane Hutson’s entertaining brand of hockey!
As previously noted, he is a gifted offensive tool from the backend. He may not be the fastest player in the draft, but he is among the most agile, which he weaponized with his deception, manipulative ability, and very good handling skills to get around forecheckers, giving him significant value in transition.
He uses these same skills to be effective in the offensive zone. He is constantly activating from the point and is at his most effective as a playmaker while doing so; he has a thorough understanding of how his movement can open passing lanes, attract defenders’ attention, and allow his teammates to move up into the slot and become prime passing targets. His shot is a real threat, too, which further enables his playmaking ability to shine.
What an absolutely ridiculous shift by @USAHockeyNTDP defenseman Lane Hutson pic.twitter.com/Ub6MT0hovo
— Derek Neumeier (@Derek_N_NHL) April 11, 2022
On the defensive side of things, Hutson projects as a player who treads water at the NHL level if he makes it. He will never be in the running for defensive defenceman of the year, but that’s okay. He keeps a tight gap in the neutral zone, keeps his feet moving in the defensive zone, and has a very active stick to threaten the puck carrier and to close down passing lanes. His defensive impact was a very positive one in the USNTDP this year, but that helped by being attached at the hip with Ryan Chesley.
Hutson is headed to a good program at Boston University next season and will need to work on a few select things to project to the NHL. First off, his skating. He is already extremely mobile and agile, but his top speed is limited and a player of his size needs to win races to loose pucks to win possession, he won’t outmuscle anyone; his pivots also need a lot of work. Second, he will need to continue to improve how he plays under pressure; undersized players who can’t do this never make it to the NHL. Hutson is already very good at this, but it will need to continue to improve as his competition grows in size and skill. Last, he needs to retain his style of play. If he’s coached to be more defensively reliable at the cost of offence, he will lose all his effectiveness and value.
Selecting Hutson is riskier than selecting a player like Matyas Sapovaliv, for instance, who is a likely future 4th liner, there’s a very real chance he doesn’t make the NHL, but if he hits, it’s a home run swing, and the Canadiens have a tonne of depth in their system but they lack many high-upside prospects, Hutson is one, and if the Canadiens have a chance to draft at 62 or later, it would be difficult to excuse passing on a player of his tremendous skill level.
2. Vladimir Grudinin, LD, Krasnaya Moskva, MHL, 5’10”, 159 lbs, (18g: 2g, 13p), Rounds 2-7.
From one undersized left-shot defenceman to another, just to make sure the points listed to start Hutson’s profile remain in your recent memory. Like Hutson, Grudinin knows how to play under pressure and has a high level of skill. Unlike Hutson, Grudinin’s defensive play is a legitimate strength and he is quite able to play on the right side of defence as well.
The uncertainty in his draft range is primarily due to his nationality. If he were Canadian, he’d be a surefire top-75 player on draft day, if not top-50. But as a result of Russia’s recent international politics and the heightened chance of Putin shutting the borders for outgoing citizens, or just athletes, Russian players are guaranteed to slip far on draft day this year. Grudinin’s agent, Dan Milstein, has, however, been vocally against the invasion of Ukraine and is very active in trying to convince his clients of moving to North America to pursue their careers, so there may be less risk in this regard with Grudinin and Gleb Trikozov.
As a player, Grudinin is electrifying. I haven’t watched a player in the 2022 class who can match his four-way mobility, Grudinin’s skating is smoothness exemplified. His skating is mechanically refined and he uses crossovers to great effect to build up speed. Grudinin is an excellent puck-mover with a strong sense of space and timing. He doesn’t just play well when pressured by opposing defenders, he thrives off of it, drawing them in and exploiting the space they vacated to send a pass onto the stick of a teammate.
https://twitter.com/JoshTessler_/status/1516607971769339908?s=20&t=KFQUJALIlWc696lM74V_aA
His hands and brain more than keep up with his feet, as well. He is an able activator from the blueline, where he uses his playmaking ability to cut through defences. His offensive ceiling is certainly lower than Hutson’s, but it is not insignificant.
His primary value comes in transition and in the defensive zone, however. The breakout ability is built upon the skating and passing abilities I outlined, while his defence is built upon his aggressiveness and intelligence. He maintains a suffocating gap in transition and his understanding of spacing and timing translates to the defensive side of the puck, with a high degree of defensive awareness.
While much of this skill was displayed in the MHL, which is a league notorious for its lack of defensive systems and ability, his style of play remained relatively consistent and effective in his KHL appearances this season. Grudinin would be a very good pick in the second round, but if he drops to rounds 4, 5, 6, or even 7, he could be an absolute steal, and one the Canadiens would be wise to pounce on.
3. Viktor Neuchev, LW, Avto Yekaterinburg, MHL, 6’2″, 165 lbs, (61g: 40g, 67p), Rounds 3-7.
From one Russian who will likely fall due to his passport to another. Viktor Neuchev is a highly-skilled forward who tore up the MHL with very little support from his teammates this season. As his statline suggests, Neuchev is a goalscorer, and perhaps due to the lower quality of his teammates he was a volume shooter this season, shooting from poor angles and looking off passing options to simply get the puck on net.
However, when he did choose to pass, he demonstrated an intriguing playmaking toolkit built on his natural deceptive ability with the puck on his stick. His threat as a shooter also opened up many playmaking options for him this season, something he will need to take increased advantage of in the future. But his shot is a legitimate weapon, he gets the puck off his stick extremely quickly and is a one-timer threat on the power play.
Viktor Neuchev is a very talented prospect with elite puck skills and agility. He can carve his way through tight areas with ease.
— Ben Misfeldt (@BBMHockey) January 14, 2022
He has 40 points (23G/17A) in 41 GP this season, 10 more than any teammate. I like him as an early 2nd round option. #2022NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/FEx4zWFDS8
What makes Neuchev electrifying, however, is his play off the rush. He attacks with speed as the above clip demonstrates. His hands are above average and keep up at this high speed. But these skills are made especially effective by his diverse and dynamic rush patterns with the puck, switching fluidly between lanes, often entering by an outside lane and cutting to the middle inside the offensive zone.
He also has a fallback game. He plays with a high degree of intensity in the offensive zone as a forechecker, consistently pressuring puck carriers and forcing mistakes. This intensity does not carry over to the defensive zone, where he is typically static and a non-factor, but that can be coached, as the intensity is consistently present. Even if his game of skill, speed, and scoring doesn’t bring him to a top-9 role in the NHL, he has a key ability that will make him a valuable piece on a fourth line, mitigating the risk in selecting him.
As with the two previous names, the Canadiens need to add more skilled and high-upside players to their system, and the draft in which they have 14 picks is the one to take those big swings. Neuchev is certainly a swing, and I’d be very happy to see him enter the fold in the Canadiens prospect pool on July 8.
4. Julian Lutz, C/LW, EHC München, DEL, 6’2″, 187 lbs, (12g: 1g, 3p), Rounds 2-3.
Julian Lutz is one of those players that will have people asking themselves how he fell as far as he did in a year’s time, and it will be a result of the injury that kept him out for most of the season and his solid but not flashy performance at the U18s.
He is a strong 200-foot player whose defensive value comes from his excellent scanning habits. He is constantly surveying the ice with and without the puck, making a mental map of the positioning of his teammates and of opponents, which serves him very well in his defensive positioning. This is also very valuable on retrievals, as he knows where pressure is coming from and uses weight shifts and lowers his centre of gravity to be deceptive and explode into one direction or another.
https://twitter.com/IIHFHockey/status/1518304637073375232?s=20&t=KFQUJALIlWc696lM74V_aA
Lutz’s skating is a real strength, he is very quick and his acceleration is a valuable asset in small-area situations like pressured retrievals and in open ice to explode through the neutral zone to force a zone entry. And when Lutz picks up speed, he’s a freight train with soft hands. He was up to the task of pro hockey’s physicality this year and outmuscled most of his opponents, who are grown men.
Lutz’s motor, skating, and physicality ensure that he won’t drop too far on draft day, but a team that pounces on him early could be rewarded with a future middle-six winger with playmaking upside, high-end defence, reliable play, and intensity. That’s the exact mould of player the Canadiens would appreciate to have on a third line in a few years, and Lutz’s floor is quite a high one, i’d be very surprised if he doesn’t become an NHL regular.
5. Noah Warren, RD, Gatineau Olympiques, QMJHL, 6’5″, 224 lbs, (62g: 5g, 24p), Rounds 2-3.
I first watched Noah Warren play alongside my good friend and A Winning Habit co Site Expert, Patrick Lortie, from the press box in Gatineau in October (sat just 15 feet to the left of now dismissed Canadiens AGM and head of scouting, Trevor Timmins), and we both fell in love with his game that day. Warren is the type of player whose game most would describe as “honest”. He just plays the game the right way and has a great understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses.
As his size would suggest, Warren’s physicality is utterly dominant in the QMJHL. He wins every puck battle he enters, he protects the puck with brutal effectiveness, and he can absolutely rock opponents with big hits, but the key is that his physicality is very functional and used with real purpose. He knows how to turn it into the greatest possible advantage for his team.
https://twitter.com/EPRinkside/status/1506789617474813956?s=20&t=KFQUJALIlWc696lM74V_aA
Beyond the physicality, Warren is extremely mobile, he’s a smooth skater who can pick up an impressive amount of speed when he really gets going. He’s also an extremely intelligent player. His defensive awareness is a standout quality. His positioning is consistently good. He clears the front of the net very effectively. He maintains a tight gap and suffocates most rushes he defends. As a whole, he is an extremely reliable defender who makes for an easy NHL projection.
Warren is also very composed with the puck on his stick, which is especially notable on retrievals in his own end. When pressured, he diffuses the situation by making a simple play to secure possession, be it an effective stickhandle paired with a weight shift to change direction on a dime, an accurate pass to an open target, or just effective puck protection.
In the offensive zone, Warren has shown flashes of playmaking ability, where he drifts into the high slot and wires a no-look pass onto the tape of a teammate’s stick, and he has a rocket of shot, but he mainly plays a conservative style and defers to his partner and the forwards to make the creative offensive plays.
While the offensive upside is limited with Warren, he has significant upside as a puck-moving defensive defenceman who dominates physically and impresses with his calmness and mobility. I think his floor is as a 6th defenceman, but if he hits, he could be a minute-munching #4 who compliments a high-octane offensive partner perfectly… Lane Hutson, for example. Warren is a modern defensive defenceman who I prefer to his teammate Tristan Luneau who will surely be selected before him, and would make a wonderful addition to the Canadiens’ shallow depth in the right defence prospect pool.
Honourable Mentions
Brady Stonehouse, RW, Ottawa 67’s, OHL, 5’9″, 183 lbs, (68g: 18g, 34p), Rounds 5-7.
Just an absolute pest. Attitude on the ice is very reminiscent of Brady Tkachuk. If he makes the NHL, he’ll be a perfect fourth-line energy guy, and I came to really appreciate his game with my 67’s season tickets this season. He drives the net really well and upped his skill level when promoted to the first line late in the season. His upside is limited, but he’s really entertaining and could be a fun 7th-round flyer.
Jeremy Wilmer, C, Tri-City Storm, USHL, 5’7″, 141 lbs, (60: 25g, 98p), Rounds 5-7.
Yes, he’s tiny and yes, he’s an overager (but barely, just. a few days between his birthday and the cutoff) but Wilmer is tremendously entertaining. His skill level is high and he’s deserving of a draft pick following a truly dominant USHL season, one which came close to Sean Farrell’s D+1 production, and Farrell was old for his draft class, so Wilmer is almost a full year younger than when Farrell had that tremendous season. He plays with high ace and dynamism, attacks open space very well, and finds passing options few other USHL players can. High-upside swing in the late rounds.
Olivier Boutin, LD, Gatineau Olympiques, QMJHL, 5’9″, 174 lbs, (62g: 6g, 36p), Rounds 6-7.
Another undersized overager, Boutin impressed me every time I watched the Olympiques to scout players that weren’t him. When he was paired with Warren, the two played their best hockey. Boutin is a tremendous transition defender who maintains a consistently tight gap and is very reliable in his own end due to his highly intelligent positioning, to the point where he was consistently the most used Gatineau defender on the PK. He’s very mobile and an accurate breakout passer. He could turn into a really reliable puck-moving #5 defenceman down the line.
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