Montreal Canadiens: Former Habs First Round Pick Inks Two-Year Extension

The Montreal Canadiens have been acquiring first round picks from other teams and also making deals for recent first round picks as well.

It is all part of the rebuilding process as they look to add as many young assets as they possibly can to the lineup. This resulted in the team swapping first round picks for Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook but also adding extra first rounders in trades involving Tyler Toffoli, Ben Chiarot and Sean Monahan.

Perhaps trading away Monahan will net them another first round pick in the near future but we will have to wait and see what happens before the trade deadline.

One recent first round pick of the Canadiens that is no longer on the team is Ryan Poehling. The big center was drafted with the 25th overall selection in the 2017 NHL Draft by the Canadiens. He played parts of two seasons with the Canadiens, scoring 13 goals and 23 points as a Canadiens player but was traded.

Poehling was part of the trade that sent Jeff Petry to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Mike Matheson and a fourth round pick. He played just one season with the Penguins, scoring 14 points in 53 games but he was not given a qualifying offer and became a free agent. He signed with the Philadelphia Flyers and has played well.

The 6'3" defensive center has played well enough to earn a two-year contract extension with the Flyers. He will earn $1.9 million each of the next two seasons and has turned into a reliable penalty killer for the Flyers.

It seemed odd that the Penguins just gave up on him but maybe their new general manager Kyle Dubas was still mad at Poehling for scoring a hat trick against the Toronto Maple Leafs in his NHL debut when Dubas was still running the Leafs.

It also seemed a bit odd when the Canadiens moved on from him but we can't complain with the value Matheson has brought to the team in the year and a half since the trade was made.