With the draft on June 28th, the Montreal Canadiens will beef up their prospect pool, especially with pick five and 26.
So with that, it inspired me to conduct an updated ranking of the top 10 players in the Habs prospect pool. Certainly, there is hope that it will need to be updated after the two-day event. But for now, we will rank the pre-draft top 10 heading into the 2024-25 campaign.
The 10th-ranked prospect is Filip Mesar, who was the second Slovakian native drafted by the Habs within the first 30 picks at the 2022 NHL Draft. Mesar was touted as a speedster, whose hands move as fast as his feet. On the fly is where he is at his best, stickhandling like he is chopping lettuce and using great edgework to throw off defenders.
Mesar was picked much to a mixed reaction from Canadiens fans, who believed that there may have been better options. Be that as it may, however, Kent Hughes went with who he felt was the best player. Juraj Slafkovsky proved him right this season, so hopes are still high that Mesar will do more of the same.
With back-to-back 50-plus point seasons, this season in just 45 games and last season in 52 games, Mesar has proven to be solid at the Ontario Hockey League level. But the issue with Mesar is that he is a bit frustrating, he had previous experience playing professionally in Slovakia and that hasn't proven much yet. With his first professional season in North America slated to begin in October, it will be a big year for Mesar.
A big year means big expectations and while they aren't astronomical like Slafkovsky's, Mesar will have a lot of attention. I am pulling for him and hope that he can find the next level of his game, that many would expect for a first-round draft prospect. I'm not saying that he will explode, but if he does struggle it will be a bit more intense than in Kitchener.
Mesar is the 10th-ranked prospect because there is a huge opportunity for him to prove that he has a future in the Canadiens top 9. But right now, even if they aren't touted to play as high in the lineup as Mesar, nine prospects have higher odds of playing in the NHL.