An excerpt from HabProsects.com (montrealdan):
Going into the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, it was clear that the Montreal Canadiens were thin on D prospects with just a small handful of prospects, now flash forward to just over two years later and the club now boasts one of the deepest prospect pools of defensemen. The team opted to take two defensemen in the first round in David Fischer and Ryan McDonagh while trading down in 2006 where they acquired Mathieu Carle.
The team has D prospects in just about every major development league, and while the majority are right handed defensemen, overall they have a solid mix of size, strength, physical play and offensive skills. With PK Subban, Yannick Weber and Mathieu Carle you have some impressive offensive defensemen, and with others like Ryan O’Byrne, Ryan McDonagh, Alexei Emelin, and Pavel Valentenko you have tough physical defensemen that bring good size, strength, speed and skating, in addition to David Fischer who doesn’t bring the same assets as the rest of the group but still is a quality prospect.
In addition the team also has a very solid group of lesser known D prospects, guys like Phillippe Paquet, Nichlas Torp, Joe Stejskal and Greg Pateryn. All of these lesser known prospects may have a harder time making the NHL, they all have good frames and are said to enjoy the physical game, in fact you could say some of them are among the most physical prospects in the Habs entire farm system