The Montreal Canadiens already have two first round picks in the 2022 NHL Draft. They added one from the Calgary Flames as the centrepiece of the Tyler Toffoli trade. That pick will be 26th overall.
They also have their own which ended up being first overall after the draft lottery occurred. There have been plenty of rumblings around the hockey world that the Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes is not going to be satisfied to sit and pick at first and 26th overall.
Many around the game have suggested that the Habs are likely to be aggressive in trying to move up in the draft. But, how high can they realistically move up from 26th overall? And do they have a key player they are willing to move that would interest another team in moving an early pick?
It sounds like the team is sniffing around as high as the top ten picks. In fact, according to Bruce Garrioch of TSN, the Canadiens have contacted everyone else with a top ten pick to see if they would be willing to move it.
As I reported today, led to believe the #GoHabsGo have called every team in the top 10 because they want to make a splash with a second pick in that area.
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) June 30, 2022
But how realistic is it that they can jump all the way from 26th to “top ten”? It is something that we rarely see in the NHL. Draft picks, especially top ten picks are precious diamonds in the hockey world that are never more valuable than the week of the actual draft.
According to capfriendly.com, the website that knows more about NHL contracts than the NHL general managers that sign said players to these contracts, it almost unheard of that a team trades away a top five pick, while already knowing it is a top five pick. What I mean by that is, teams have traded picks that eventually became top five picks, but they didn’t know it at the time of the trade.