Montreal Canadiens Worst Ever NHL Draft Classes: #4

The Montreal Canadiens enter the 2023 NHL Draft with a chance to add a haul of good prospects. They pick early (5th overall) and often (11 picks in total) and obviously want to add some players who can help them become contenders in the next few years.

As we gear up for Wednesday night’s NHL Draft, we are looking back at some recent Habs draft classes and ranking the worst of them. Today, we take a look at the fourth worst draft class ever by the Montreal Canadiens.

The 2009 NHL Draft was held at the Bell Centre in Montreal. While there was plenty of hype and intrigue leading up to the festivities in Montreal, and there was a huge ovation when the first round selection was made, it did not turn out well for the Canadiens in hindsight.

Just following the disaster of a centennial season came pretty much a disaster of an NHL Draft. The Canadiens entered with a total of eight picks in the seven round event, but none of them would become NHL regulars.

Louis Leblanc was taken with the first round pick at 18th overall. It did not turn out as well as the fans in attendance that day would have hoped. The Pointe-Claire native was a popular choice at the time of his selection, and was expected to become a great two-way centre down the road.

He would play a grand total of 50 NHL games and scored just five goals and ten points in his entire NHL career. Leblanc looked good at first, putting up 22 points in 31 AHL games in his first pro season. He seemed to regress from there and was eventually traded to the Anaheim Ducks for future considerations, which is NHL trade talk for absolutely nothing.

The most impressive career from all Canadiens drafted in 2009 belongs to Gabriel Dumont. He played a total of 90 NHL games in his career and scored nine points. He has had a lengthy AHL career where he is a trusted veteran and solid two-way contributor.

The rest of the 2009 draft class included Joonas Nattinen, Mac Bennett, Alexander Avtsin, Dustin Walsh, Mike Cichy and Petteri Simila. The only one to play any nHL games was Nattinen who suited up for just one game for the Habs in 2013-14.

That’s a total of 141 games and 19 points from a draft class of eight players. That is not ideal. The Canadiens did not get a single NHL regular from the entire draft class and that is why the 2009 NHL Draft is the fourth worst one in Canadiens history.

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