Montreal Canadiens: Matvei Michkov Would Be Worth The Wait For Habs

The Montreal Canadiens suffered through a difficult 2022-23 season. While the year started out better than expected, there were long stretches of dreadful play, injuries piled up at an almost comical rate and the young group of blue liners dealt with their fair share of growing pains.

The light at the end of a season-long tunnel is a top draft pick. The Canadiens were not the worst team in the league, and ended up with the 5th overall selection as the Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets and San Jose Sharks were all, somehow, even worse.

It leaves the Canadiens in a precarious position. Their likely four top targets at the draft are all centers who project to be first line scorers at the NHL level. Connor Bedard is going to be selected first overall. Adam Fantilli is pretty near a lock to go second. Leo Carlsson and Will Smith are the most likely selections at third and fourth.

With them off the board, the Canadiens will have missed out on adding a potential game breaking center. But it wouldn’t mean they have missed out entirely on game-breaking players.

Matvei Michkov is a winger, but he has the most offensive potential in this draft aside from Bedard. The skilled Russian has done things almost no one his age has been able to accomplish, but he is not expected to be picked in the first few selections.

The biggest reason he may slide further than his talent would suggest is that he is signed for three more seasons in the KHL. The NHL and KHL do not have a transfer agreement in place, which essentially means players can be signed in one league or the other and not both. If Michkov were signed to play in Sweden for the next three seasons, he would have an out clause in his contract that allows him to leave at any time to join the NHL.

That isn’t the case in Russia, so Michkov is expected to play the next three years in Russia. This has a number of teams at the top of the draft thinking twice before selecting the super skilled player.

While some teams are thinking they can’t afford to take the risk, can the Canadiens really afford not to take the risk? We have not seen a 50 goal scorer in Montreal since Stephane Richer in the 1980’s. There has not been a 100 point player on the Canadiens roster since 1986. There hasn’t even been a 40 goal scorer since Vincent Damphousse in 1994. Damphousse and Pierre Turgeon had over 90 points in 1995-96 for the Canadiens, but no one else has done it since.

Forget an actual Art Ross candidate, the Habs can barely find a player to score at a point per game clip once per decade. Alex Kovalev scored 84 points in 2008-09 and he is the only Canadiens player to score 82 points or more in a single season since Damphousse and Turgeon in 1996.

Speaking of the Art Ross, Guy Lafleur was the last Canadiens player to lead the league in points when he had 132 in 1977-78.

So, what I’m trying to say is, who are we to suggest the Montreal Canadiens can’t afford to wait three years for an elite scorer to show up? Three years? We have waited pretty near three decades for someone to score 85 points or more.

Michkov has the skill and ability to possibly become a regular 80+ point scorer at the NHL level. What he has done to date is hard to fathom. The fact Russia has not been taking part in international competitions in the past few years has really kept Michkov off the radar a bit, because he surely would have dominated the World Junior and World Under-18’s in the past couple years.

He already did it once as an underager at the Under-18 tournament. The 2021 tournament mostly featured the best players born in 2003. Michkov, born in December of 2004, scored an incredible 12 goals and 16 points in just seven games to lead the event in goals and points. Connor Bedard was at the same tournament and scored seven goals and 14 points in seven games.

He also played at the Ivan Hlinka tournament in the summer of 2021. Although most players were a year older than him, Michkov again led the event in scoring with eight goals and 13 points in five games.

Michkov played the most recent season in the KHL, mostly. He also split some time in the VHL, which is Russia’s form of the AHL, as well as the MHL which is Russia’s top Junior league.

In a total of 30 KHL games, Michkov scored nine goals and 20 points. That might not sound like a wild number, but let’s compare to some well known Russian’s in their draft year.

Vladimir Tarasenko was a first round pick in 2010 after scoring 13 goals and 24 points in 42 KHL games. Evgeni Kuznetsov went in the first round of the same draft after scoring two goals and eight points in 35 games at Russia’s top level. Nikita Kucherov only got into nine KHL games in his draft season and he scored two points. Artemi Panarin played 20 games in what would have been his NHL draft year and he scored one goal and nine points.

It is quite rare for a teenager to have scoring success at the top level in Russia. They usually don’t even get the chance to play in the KHL as they get pushed down to VHL or MHL. Michkov played some time at those levels last season as well, but showed he was simply too good. He scored ten goals in just 12 VHL games and dominated Junior in 2021-22 by scoring 22 goals and 38 points in 22 games.

Michkov is possibly the most talented player in this draft, and that is really saying something when everyone knows Bedard is going first overall. Is Michkov were from Saskatchewan, he would surely be going second. The Canadiens may be able to get that elite player with the fifth pick.

The Canadiens have not been able to draft, sign or trade for an elite scorer in nearly 30 years. That is not all the fault of the current management team headlined by Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. However, they have to be aware that Michkov could possibly be the most elite player in Montreal since…. Lafleur?

To pass on that potential because we may have to wait three years is foolish. If the Canadiens choose a player like Ryan Leonard instead, he probably needs to years of college hockey before he is ready anyway.

The Pittsburgh Penguins had to wait two years after drafting Evgeni Malkin to get him out of Russia, and even then it was a difficult task. They could have saved themselves the headache and waiting period and taken the next best player available, but I don’t think they win three Stanley Cups in the past two decades if they passed on Malkin for Cam Barker.

Taking the best player available is always the mantra of teams at the NHL Draft. Hopefully the Canadiens decide to hold true to that and take Michkov. Waiting three years for an elite talent might sound like a long time to some teams, but Habs fans have already been waiting 27 years, so what’s another three?

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