Habs Prospects
The Montreal Canadiens Select Rasmus Bergqvist 224th Overall
The Montreal Canadiens have made the 224th pick at the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, selecting defenceman Rasmus Bergqvist in the seventh round.
I’d be lying if I said we have much information on the 19-year-old defenceman, which means we have our homework cut out for us. In the meantime, feel free to take a look at what Elite Prospects has to offer on Bergqvist.
Montreal Canadiens Draft Pick Information And Pre-Draft Trades
The Montreal Canadiens owned 10 draft picks heading into the 2024 NHL Draft: 5th Overall, 21st overall (via Los Angeles), 70th overall, 78th overall (via Minnesota), 102nd overall, 130th overall (via San Jose), 134th overall, 166th overall, 210th overall (via Washington) and 224th overall (via Edmonton).
Prior to the draft the team owned 12 picks, but they swung a pre-draft trade with the Los Angeles Kings to improve their draft position. Montreal exchanged the 26th overall pick (via Winnipeg), the 57th overall pick (via Colorado) and the 198th overall pick for the 21st overall pick. Seeing as the Habs already own an impressive prospect pool, as well as plenty of draft capital, it’s the type of trade that fans were hoping to see prior to the draft taking place. Simply put, it’s a matter of quality over quantity for the Canadiens, both for picks and prospects.
The team used the fifth overall pick to select a very talented forward, Ivan Demidov., considered the second-best talent available in 2024. He immediately becomes the most talented and most important player in their prospect pool, which is important seeing as the Canadiens already own one of the best prospect pools in the NHL.
They followed it up by selecting USHL standout Michael Hage, a well-rounded forward that should bring depth, intelligence, and speed to their transition game.
Any way you cut it, the Habs enjoyed a rather successful first round at the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
If you would like to learn more about the state of the Montreal Canadiens rebuild we invite you to take a look at our ‘State Of The Rebuild‘ series which was published following the conclusion of the 2023-24 season.
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Canadiens Draft Intentions, RFA Signings, Trade Talk, and UFAs
I think Hab fans should be pretty happy with this draft. We didn’t draft a single player anyone could describe as a smurf–every pick was 6’+. We finally drafted what most of us hope will be a legitimate, point per game star winger in Demidov. We selected a very good 2 way center in Michael Hage. We drafted some size up front in a few 6’4″ + forwards. Most importantly, we only took 2 defencemen, and none in rounds 1 or 3.
We also landed Aatos Koivu, son of Saku, which is a pretty great story in and of itself.
I’m pretty happy with this year’s draft. I like where it might lead. Good work Hughes and company.
And well done to churn out so many articles, articles that gave out a lot more details than the major sites.
The Canadiens did not not draft any Quebec born players, but there are several talented undrafted Quebec players who have a good chance to be invited to training camp to tryout for the team. Antonin Verrault who led the QMJHL in scoring with 107 points deserves an invitation to tryout with the team.
Antonin Verreault Left Wing — shoots L
Born Jul 28 2004 — Laval, PQ
[19 yrs. ago]
Height 5.08 — Weight 166 [173 cm/75 kg]He makes Hutson look Xhekaj!
He is the same size as Martin St. Louis who proved everyone wrong.
I do not expect him to make the team. I was just saying that he deserves a invitation to tryout for the team. Usually in pre season there are a huge number of players trying out for the team most of whom do not make the team or are assigned to a minor league team.