Montreal Canadiens Three Drastically Different Options With Newly Acquired First Round Draft Pick

Package It With Left Defenseman For First Line Scorer

The Canadiens are eventually going to have to take a bigger risk and try to move the team forward with an impact addition. They can't stay in the slow rebuild forever and wait and hope the guys in the system will fill in all the holes in the lineup perfectly and make this team a playoff contender.

Sometimes a rebuilding team needs to put a package together to acquire a player that fits their needs perfectly.What the Canadiens obviously need is a top six winger, prefereably a first line winger that can score plenty of goals and produce at about a point per game pace.

The Canadiens could look to free agency this offseason to fill this role. Maybe they get lucky and Sam Reinhart or Steven Stamkos want to join the Canadiens, but that comes with some risk as Reinhart will require an enormous payday as a free agent, and Stamkos is nearing the end of his career.

On the trade market, you can find players that more accurately fit your needs. That would be someone younger than Stamkos and also cheaper than whatever contract Reinhart ends up with which won't be that far off from William Nylander's recent extension of eight years and $11.5 million.

Who would be out there that would fit that description? Maybe this new pick gets packaged with a player like Jordan Harris for Pavel Buchnevich of the St. Louis Blues. Or the pick and Arber Xhekaj get dealt for Travis Konecny of the Philadelphia Flyers. Or this pick and Jayden Struble go to the Anaheim Ducks for Trevor Zegras or to the Los Angeles Kings for Kevin Fiala.

Either way, there are definitely going to be options for the Canadiens to use this pick, and their plethora of left defensemen to add a scoring forward to the team.