Artturi Lehkonen snubbed on Habs 2015 top 10 prospects list

Hindsight can be a very funny thing, this is especially true in the case of the Montreal Canadiens. 

In 2015 the Canadiens had a decent group of prospects, or so they thought. The group was so formidable that a certain player wasn’t included in the top 10. Many things have changed since then, so it’s not crazy to see such a thing happen, but things have changed, to say the least.

Artturi Lehkonen, the Habs second round, 55th overall selection has emerged as the top player from the Habs 2013 draft class. But somehow he was snubbed from the list, which includes the three players drafted ahead of him by the Habs - Michael McCarron (25th), Jacob De La Rose (34th) and Zachary Fucale (36th. McCarron played in the NHL as recently as this year with the Nashville Predators, while Fucale and De La Rose are no longer playing in North America.

These lists can generally be quite subjective, in that every team's scouting staff values different players for different reasons. So scouting agencies may not have the same lists. Some may have a pretty spot-on analysis of a group of prospects, while others are wrong.

Lehkonen can't hear the haters because of his Stanley Cup ring

Lehkonen developed into a staple for the Habs top nine, emerging as the Canadiens top two-way player. It wasn't easy when the Habs let him go, but the timeline and where Lehkonen was at in his career, it was the right thing to do. Justin Barron was the big piece coming back in the trade, and the results are still unknown, but the hope is Barron will become at minimum a top-six defender.

Regardless of that, however, Lehkonen has become more than what the Canadiens expected when drafting him. As for the Avalanche, he has been exactly the piece they needed to elevate their top six to another level. It's funny when you think about it, that the top 10 players on the prospect list haven't played half as many games as Lehkonen.

Noah Juulsen has continued chasing his NHL dream, despite going through so much injury trouble. But he is gone from the organization, which doesn't look good for the Habs drafting in 2013 - McCarron, (2014 - Nikita Scherbak - 26th overall) and (2015 - Juulsen - 26th overall) three picks in a row that are gone. Lets not mention the first round picks from 2016 - 2018.

Any way that you cut it though, Lehkonen has made plenty of evaluators look silly.