Montreal Canadiens: 2017 Re-Draft – Is Nick Suzuki A Top 5 Pick?
By Suki Gill
The 2017 NHL Entry Draft is one of the better ones in recent memory. It’s been six years now, which is far enough down the road that we can identify the best players in the class with some certainty. While the Montreal Canadiens only had the 25th pick in the first round, they still managed to end up with one of them.
This draft, while deep and laden with future franchise cornerstones, lacked a generational player at the top so right down to the final days leading up to big night there was no consensus on who would go first overall. It was virtually a 50-50 split in the rankings between centers Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick.
The New Jersey Devils ultimately selected Hischier at number 1. The Philadelphia Flyers picked Patrick second, followed by the Dallas Stars taking defenseman Miro Heiskanen third. Cale Makar was the second defenseman off the board going fourth to the Colorado Avalanche and the Vancouver Canucks rounded out the top five by choosing center Elias Pettersson. Outside of Patrick, it’s difficult to call any of the other top selections a miss and they would all likely be picked almost as high today as they were then.
The bottom half of the top ten went as follows: Cody Glass to Vegas, recent Canadiens signee Lias Andersson to the Rangers, Casey Mittelstadt to Buffalo, Michael Rasmussen to Detroit and Owen Tippett to Florida
The Canadiens picked Ryan Poehling at 25, a center from St. Cloud State, but it is another center who is the subject of this exercise. Nick Suzuki, the 13th overall pick by the Vegas Golden Knights that year has emerged as one of the true draft gems of 2017.
The question is if we were to re-draft the 2017 class today, where would Suzuki go? Let’s find out, check out my revised draft on the next page.