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Okay, so here we are again, a few weeks removed from the Habs either securing a massive missing piece or, to be frank, missing out on a massive piece.
We’ve known this process all too well under the old Trevor Timmins regime. Draft day would come, and there it was: Andrei Kostitsyn when Jeff Carter was available, Kyle Chipchura when Travis Zajac or even David Krejci was on the board. Yes, yes, Carey Price in 2005, while Bob Gainey mouthed “are you sure” to Timmins and Pierre McGuire struggled to make sense of what the Vezina-equipped Habs were doing. We’ve only scratched the surface. There are so many to count, so many days when Habs fans had to muster up the will to celebrate players like Danny Kristo when his frostbitten toes almost ended his hockey career a little while later.
Oh, let’s be frank at this point: the Habs had no process, no culture, and even worse, no firm understanding for the better part of three decades of how to build a successful hockey club. What they did know was how to create a club through a thousand Band-Aids and patches, hoping the team would hold. At no time did they follow any of the templates that every other team seemed to have grasped to reinforce their ability to succeed in extended postseasons or reliably make the playoffs. No, no … when it came to Montreal, from 1994 onward, it felt like a lot of “let’s make the playoffs first and then find out.”
Well, truth be told, we never found out.
So how do you break the cycle? Through the draft? Through free agency? Do you graft a solution or grow it?
The answer is something that doesn’t really start on the ice. It’s a process of building a steady conduit of excellence through your bloodstream, something the Habs are looking to build one piece at a time under the Kent Hughes regime. Get one piece wrong or lose one in free agency, and your vast network of development coaches and scouts ensures another is sitting in your backyard.
Ok, enough with the philosophy. Who should the Habs draft?
Well, taking all that into account, I wouldn’t humour you by saying that I’m an expert. Yes, I’ve watched countless videos, paid my dues to those fancy scouting websites, spent days looking at advanced stats fully knowing that it doesn’t matter as draft day and development can often carry a player in unexpected directions. Just ask Chipchura’s ankle.
Ok, don’t go actually talk to an ankle, but you get the point.
What the Habs need is youth with confidence that isn’t misplaced, confidence that comes with hard work and dedication coupled with speed and grit. Imagine if a player like Jack Hughes centred one of the Habs’ top lines—a Brad Richards in his prime type with added speed and execution.
One name stands out: Berkly Catton.
Rare are the forwards in this year’s draft who have put more effort into their shot. Even rarer are those who have done it at the speed he’s doing it at. Have the Habs had a similar player in their lineup? Some would say not since Saku Koivu. Catton could be the electric spark plug the Habs won’t see for a while.
He’ll likely be available at fifth overall. I hope Hughes and Jeff Gorton pick up the young man whose confidence and leadership skills would be right at home in this lineup.
And hey, if they don’t, get me some of that sweet Demidov Coolaid.
