The Montreal Canadiens rebuild is in full force after two difficult seasons on the ice. The team has picked in the top five each of the past two NHL Drafts and are building up a deep and talented prospect pool.
While it is one thing for Habs fans to look at their own team’s list of players and prospects and have great hope for all of them, it is a little less biased when there is an independent scout or prospect evaluator ranking the players.
That was just the case this morning as Corey Pronman of The Athletic released his latest rankings of the best prospects and players under the age of 23 around the hockey world. His full list included a total of 168 players, meaning an average team would boast five players on the full list.
That is not the case for the Canadiens, who have a total of 11 players on Pronman’s ranking, giving fans tremendous hope for the future of this franchise.
Cole Caufield is the highest ranked Canadiens player on the list at #11. He is in Pronman’s “NHL All-Star” tier and his goal scoring capabilities and such a young age does provide Habs fans with hope he can emerge as one of the best goal scorers in the league.
Juraj Slafkovksy comes in at #19. His first NHL season was filled with lessons he can learn going forward and not so much with him taking over games and looking like a dominant player. However, he has the size, speed and skill to turn into a cornerstone piece of the franchise, which the team was hoping for when they drafted him first overall in the 2022 NHL Draft.
David Reinbacher is ranked 25th on Pronman’s list after being selected 5th overall in the 2023 NHL Draft. He is a budding two-way defender who projects to play a lot of minutes on the Habs blue line in the future.
Kirby Dach is the next Habs player on the list and he ranks 47th. It is sometimes easy to forget how young Dach is and he has tremendous potential to turn into a dominant two-way center for the Habs.
Kaiden Guhle is 51st on the list, Alex Newhook is 89th, Justin Barron is 123rd, Lane Hutson is 127th, Owen Beck is 136th, Joshua Roy is 146th, and Sean Farrell is 162nd.
That is a total of 11 Habs players in the top 162 Under-23 players and prospects around the league. Needless to say that is well above average and shows the Canadiens have a tremendous amount of talent in the pipeline and a handful of excellent young players already on the roster.
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