Canadiens Could Use Mid-Round Picks To Their Advantage

The Montreal Canadiens are once again entering the NHL Draft with many mid-round picks, but that could change in a hurry.

As of this junction, the Canadiens have three 4th-round picks and two 5th-round picks, making up nearly half of their 11 total picks for the 2023 NHL Draft.

In past years, the Montreal Canadiens routinely drafted over 10 players per draft, mostly in the later rounds, to no avail.

There have been some recent wins like Joshua Roy and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, but they’re the exception, not the rule.

During the 2022 NHL Draft, the Canadiens used a few of their draft capital to advance some trade outcomes, like the Alexander Romanov and Kirby Dach trades.

We could see the Habs do exactly the same thing this year.

Throw-In For Bigger Trades

The Montreal Canadiens haven’t been shy about telling the world they want to be aggressive on the draft floor on June 28th.

The expectations are that general manager Kent Hughes will look to continue selling off some of his veteran players as his youngsters continue to push for roster spots.

In doing so, he may want to fill some roster spots in deals that would benefit the organization in the long-term, and, sometimes, those types of deals need a bit of a push.

This is where the Canadiens could throw a few of these picks up in trades, as the organization simply has much too many in their organization that they’ll eventually have to let go for nothing.

Trading Up In The Draft

The Canadiens have rarely traded up in the NHL Draft.

More often than not, they either trade back or simply trade the pick for an equivalent selection in the next draft; but perhaps things will be different this year.

With the organization seemingly set n terms of depth, it’s time to shoot for quality and get aggressive; jumping back into the 2nd and 3rd rounds to pounce on some players that are simply too good to select at that rank.

Sweetener To Move Contracts

The Montreal Canadiens have refused, up to this point, to use any draft capital or salary retention to help them move some of their veteran players on rich deals.

With budding youngsters like Harvey-Pinard, Jesse Ylönen, and more pushing for spots at forward, it could make sense, at least from a roster perspective, to consider such a move, rather than losing some of these players to waivers next fall.

Players like Joel Armia or Mike Hoffman could be clear candidates for cap dumps by the organization, as they’d be taking a spot that would be better suited for one of the organization’s many youngsters.

With just one year left on his deal, perhaps retaining on Hoffman’s contract could be a more attractive solution to extract better value for him, but, if Hughes prefers to retain full salary flexibility, a mid-round pick could help convince a club to pull the trigger.