Montreal Draft Recap

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Vik (Habs)
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Montreal Draft Recap

Post by Vik (Habs) »

Another year with Montreal looking primed to turn things around via the draft, another year of trading picks and oddball choices.


In their biggest deal of draft day, Montreal sent their 5th and 6th overall picks to Los Angeles in order to move up and select Matthew Tkachuk. Vik's reasoning, we're told, was "Why have two high end picks when you can have one slightly higher one?"

After that, they moved down a few spots in the 2nd and sent out a 2nd rounder from next year to acquire Joseph Labate from Philly. Because if there's one thing you should be giving up higher picks for, it's a forward making over $3M with a career high of 11 goals.

Montreal also dealt a 2nd round pick this year to the Panthers for Florida's 2nd next year. Asked why he would make such a deal, Vik claimed "Just like the old saying, a dollar in the future is worth more than a dollar today." When it was pointed out that the saying is the other way around, Vik countered "No, a dollar in the future is worth way more because it must have done some time travelling. How much would you spend for a time travelling dollar? A lot more than a dollar, am I right?" How can you argue with that logic?

We asked a scout for some reports on the four choices Montreal ended up making in the second round and got the following response:
Libor Hajek: OK at everything, not really good at anything.
Markus Niemelainen: Libor Hajek with a lesser shot.
Matt Filipe: Hitter with an OK shot.
Trent Fox: Matt Filipe with a lesser shot.
After reading that, we decided to reach out to Vik to ask his opinion on the Armageddon/Deep Impact debate. He responded "I couldn't decide which was worse so I bought them both. Why do you ask?"

Montreal had four picks in the 3rd round and, somewhat surprisingly, used all of them.
At #63, they grabbed Gabriel Sylvestre. A scout told us he could be a hitter that can make a decent pass. That sounded promising so we inquired what the rest of skill set was like. The response was simply "Non-existent."
At #68, Montreal took Henrik Borgström. Asked what they liked about Borgström, Vik answered "The ö."
At #72, it was Yevgeni Mityakin. We were told that, if they're lucky, he could develop into a Matt Filipe/Trent Fox type. Seems this GM can't stop with the re-runs.
And at #77, they selected Jesper Bratt. A scout told us Bratt was destined to put up some gaudy point totals. It was just likely to be in the AHL.

In the 4th round, Montreal used the 116th pick to select Oliver Felixson. We asked a scout what Felixson's skill set was like and he said "Well he's big and, in the rare game he shows up to, he can be physically menacing." We asked about the other games. "Uh ... did I mention he was big?"

After that, Vik got back into trade mode, sending pick #118 to Nashville for John Hayden. The Predators had given Hayden 25 games in the big leagues over the past couple years and came to the realization that he wasn't good enough to hold down a full time roster spot on an EHEC team. So he should fit in perfectly in Montreal.

Still in the mood for dealing, Vik sent the team's only 5th round pick to San Jose for Keith Ballard. One can only imagine this deal was inspired by last year's trade for Niklas Kronwall. Because Kronwall ended up playing such a starring role on a great Habs team this past season, didn't he.

In the 6th round, Montreal selected goaltender Filip Larsson. Our scout told us this might be the most talented player the Habs took outside of Tkachuk. After expressing some surprise that a team could find such a talent this late (and that it'd be Montreal), our scout clarified that he's talented in the sense that he could win you a game by himself but he'd probably lose you the next 4 by himself as well.

Montreal closed out their draft by selecting Leonid Lavrinenko in the 7th round. On the plus side, he can play both forward and D. On the down side, he doesn't play either of them well.


So there you have it. After another squandered draft, there's bound to be plenty of raging debate in Quebec about the management of this team by Vik. Debate likely to be in the form of, which year do you think he did more to set the team back?
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