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5 Players The Canadiens Would Be Wise To Target After Round 1 Of NHL Draft

By Sebastian High

KITCHENER, ONTARIO - MARCH 23: Noah Warren #6 of Team White walks to the locker room prior to the 2022 CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game at Kitchener Memorial Auditorium on March 23, 2022 in Kitchener, Ontario. (Photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images)
KITCHENER, ONTARIO - MARCH 23: Noah Warren #6 of Team White walks to the locker room prior to the 2022 CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game at Kitchener Memorial Auditorium on March 23, 2022 in Kitchener, Ontario. (Photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images) /
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Montreal Canadiens
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – JUNE 22: Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images) /

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.

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