Montreal Canadiens Prospect Pool Among Best In Entire NHL

Montreal Canadiens fans are well aware the team currently owns one of the best prospect pools in franchise history. General Manager Kent Hughes has put an onus on drafting talented players with size, though he hasn’t shied away from picking a smaller player who is overflowing with talent, such as Lane Hutson.

Fans are also aware the prospect pool was lacking a certain offensive punch, to put it mildly. To be more accurate, before the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, the forward prospects with legitimate NHL potential were few and far between. That changed considerably once the Canadiens added the second-most talented player of the 2024 Draft, Ivan Demidov. He represents exactly what the Canadiens needed most: a game-changing talent up front. The prospect pool was strengthened further when Habs drafted the well-rounded prospect Michael Hage, a player who has top six potential if he maintains his current development curve.

With that in mind, the latest NHL Team Prospect Pool Strength Rankings have been released, with the Canadiens ranked among the top 3 teams in the NHL.

NHL Team Prospect Pool Strength Rankings

You can read more about the ranking methodology here, but it’s important to remember players must have participated in 100 or fewer games to be considered, which means Slafkovsky does not qualify.

Top 5 Star is the average star probability of the top 5 prospects, while Top 5 NHLer is the average NHLer probability of the top 5 prospects. Depth Stars have a 10% chance of becoming a star, Depth NHLers have a 30% chance of becoming an NHLer.

Top 5 Canadiens prospects considered: Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov, David Reinbacher, Michael Hage, Joshua Roy

Montreal Canadiens Rankings

You’ll note the Canadiens are third among all NHL prospect pools, which is actually one spot lower than they were last season. The reason behind the drop isn’t due to a lower quality of prospects in the organization, but rather, solid draft weekends from the Anaheim Ducks and the Chicago Blackhawks.

Here’s what Byron Bader, the creator of the rankings, had to say.

“I’m as surprised as you are to see that the Canadiens are not #1 and even fell back one spot from the pre-draft rankings. Montreal had a great draft, getting a potential superstar piece in Demidov, another good piece in Hage and some good depth pieces. The top 5s of Anaheim and Chicago beat them out slightly. This is a nearly perfect pool that doesn’t need much of anything else at this point.“

As Bader suggests, this is a near-perfect group of prospects, which means Habs fans surely won’t lose any sleep when it comes to the slight dip in the rankings. What matters most is that now the Montreal Canadiens have added an important element of quality to the high quantity of top-end prospects in the system.