Leon Muggli, LD/EV Zug
The Canadiens look as though they struck gold with one blueliner from NL in David Reinbacher, so perhaps Kent Hughes strikes again with Leon Muggli. From a size standpoint, Muggli is well behind Reinbacher, but for a prospect best suited to go in the second round of June’s draft, that and everything else is to be expected.
That said, the Canadiens also wouldn’t need to exert as much of a sense of urgency with someone like Muggli as was the case with Reinbacher, who played one more year in NL before he came to Laval and pretty much stole the show. This won’t be the case with Muggli, who, like Solberg, can continue developing in Europe for 2024-25 and even 2025-26.
Anthony Cristoforo, RD/Windsor
The top two names on this list aren’t known for producing points, but that changes with Anthony Cristoforo, who has shown tenacity in the offensive zone with 41 points and six goals across 63 regular season games before tacking on another two points in four postseason games in 2022-23.
Cristoforo returned this season and added another 38 and seven goals in 67 contests, and while that number didn’t increase, Windsor also ended the year with the second-worst points total in the OHL. To make things more interesting, they also allowed an eye-popping 360 goals or 5.29 per game, and they also put up just 247. So it wasn’t an easy year for Cristoforo to produce, but he still put up viable numbers anyway.