An excerpt from HabProspect.com:
While Maxwell is the Habs first pick from the ’06 draft to make the NHL, he shouldn’t be the last, with Ryan White (66th) not far behind Maxwell’s production in Hamilton with only 1 less goal while bringing grit and sandpaper to the club. David Fischer (20th) is having a good season in Minnesota and could opt to turn pro this summer if things continue to go well for him and Mathieu Carle (53rd) has picked up 34 points in 81 games in the AHL.
Trevor Timmins and his staff may have had their best draft the following year, while still in the very early stages the ’07 draft is looking like it could be a real boon for the club, with their top three prospects in Max Pacioretty (22nd), Ryan McDonagh (12th) and PK Subban (43rd) along with Yannick Weber (73rd) and some other interesting prospects like Nichlas Torp (163rd) and Joe Stejskal (133rd). Weber and Pacioretty are having solid rookie years in the AHL as Weber is leading the team in scoring for defensemen and Pacioretty is second on the team in assists. Subban is tearing up the OHL , McDonagh is having a good year with Wisconsin despite a rough game or two, Stejskal is having a breakout year in the NCAA and Torp is getting a great experience in the SEL at 19.
Fly in the ointment here is that the team seems to have landed it’s best prospects from the 2006 and 2007 drafts later on. David Fischer is having a decent year for a third year NCAA player on a top team, but nothing special. Ryan McDonagh has been far less than we were led to expect to this point in his career. Certainly at this point it seems that Maxwell, Carle, White, and Pavel Valentenko are better prospects than Fischer, while Pacioretty, Subban, Weber, and maybe even Stejskal are ahead of McDonagh.
Two ways of looking at it, either the scouting staff is brilliant for landing late round players who perform better than expected, or they are negligent in using their top picks on players who underperform for their draft position.
Comments are closed.