Habs Prospects
Canadiens Prospect Michael Hage Setting NCAA On Fire
Most fans were quite happy when the Montreal Canadiens landed Michael Hage with the 21st overall pick at the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
He was considered a great-value prospect in that range, which is why the team pounced on the opportunity to add him to an already impressive roster of eventual NHL hopefuls.
Admittedly, I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about his potential prior to the draft. I watched videos and consulted a bevy of draft experts, who all thought he could end up being a steal depending on where he was picked, but I’d be lying if I said that I expected him to be dominant from the very get-go when he joined the University of Michigan (NCAA).
I doubt anyone expected him to completely skip the usual acclimatization period that comes after graduating from the USHL, since it represents one of the biggest upticks in quality of competition a player will face during his career. Even the shortest grace periods for star players tend to last a few games.
But Hage did not need a few games to find his rhythm in the NCAA.
He needed a few shifts.
Jaw-Dropping Stats
Hage recorded a pair of assists in the opening game of the season and has never looked back. Opponents have only managed to keep him off the scoresheet twice in 11 games, quite the juxtaposition when we consider the number of multipoint games he’s already produced (4).
Multipoint efforts are great, but we’d be underselling his performance on Saturday night if we didn’t mention he enjoyed the best game of his young NCAA career, to the tune of one goal and four assists during the Wolverines’ 10-6 win over Penn State.
Hage with a power-play goal gives Michigan NINE! pic.twitter.com/8nXLoEleAI
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) November 24, 2024
The 18-year-old continues to lead his team in scoring with eight goals and eight assists, good for 10th overall in NCAA scoring, and first among NCAA rookies, tied with Union’s Ben Muthersbaugh. Another way of looking at it is that Hage is just one point behind Ryan Leonard, who many consider one of the best prospects in the hockey landscape. He also has one game in hand compared to his Boston College counterpart, which means Hage is ahead of Leonard in the points-per-game race.
His start compares quite favourably to how most NHL stars performed in their first few games, but we’ll wait a little longer before we start pulling out historical comparisons.
The true test will come midway through the season, when many players end up hitting a wall.
I should also mention Hage finished Saturday’s game with a -4 rating, however, I was busy watching the Canadiens game, and we all know +/- rarely tells the whole story, therefore I don’t feel comfortable using it to denigrate his play based on the archaic stat, because I didn’t have a chance to confirm whether it truly represented defensive issues from Hage, or the team as a whole.
But suffice it to say, if Michael Hage keeps up his incredible production all season, roughly half the teams in the NHL will regret not calling his name after they made their way to the NHL Draft podium last summer.
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Not sure if this is just co-incidence, or whether Habs management are keying in on this aspect of a prospect’s circumstance, but in the case of three high quality non-francophone Hab prospects (Hage, Fowler and Steel), the player seems to have an emotional and familial connection to Montreal. Hearing these players talk about how attached they and their families are to Montreal (and to the Habs in particular) is very encouraging. And it counters the fear that Montreal (and, in fact, all Canadian NHL teams) will be subject to the “McGroarty aversion” to playing in Canada.
I think most fans were drooling at the thought of Cole Eiserman possibly falling to us, seeing as he fell all the way to 20th, 1 spot before Habs selected Hage. I wasn’t sure when the pick was made, but I was afterwards. Hearing how well they knew the player, it seems he was their preferred target. After all, once he fell so low, surely it wouldn’t have taken too much to move up a spot or 2 if Eiserman was their guy.
Seeing how great Hage is playing so far is a good sign. I agree, he will need to maintain his game as the season goes, and hopefully he can. It would be nice to hit on both 1sts from last year–Demidov is a sure thing, and Hage may be also.