Canadiens Analysis
Establishing The Cost Of Moving Up In The 2025 NHL Draft
The Montreal Canadiens own a pair of first-round picks heading into the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, however, few fans are expecting the team to make both selections.
With the 16th and 17th overall picks in the draft, the Habs may want to trade one or both of them for an established NHL player, or to move up to select a player they identified as a good-value pick.
That was the case last season, when the Canadiens traded the 26th overall pick (2025), a second-round pick (57th, 2025), and a seventh-round pick (198th) to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for the 21st overall pick (2025).
Montreal used the 21st overall pick to nab Michael Hage, one of the most interesting players in their current prospect pool.
ON TOPIC: Canadiens Prospect Michael Hage Is Setting The NCAA On Fire
All things considered, the trade provided fantastic value to the Canadiens, especially since the second-round pick they sent to the Kings was very late, and thus carried very low value. The seventh-round pick’s value was negligible. I would have quickly shut down the trade discussion if I worked for the Kings, but I digress.
The trade does provide some sort of framework when discussing a potential move this offseason.
It will likely cost the Canadiens more to move up this season, but their initial pick value is higher, mitigating some of the potential cost.
Moving Up In The First Round Of The 2025 NHL Entry Draft
The first thing we need to establish is the value of picks. I tend to describe draft-pick value as a reverse Richter Scale. Picks start off with high value, but quickly lose steam. Midway through the first round, picks lose roughly 75 percent of their value.
We’ll use the Matt Perri’s pick values this time around, but there are several good options out there, including Michael Schucker‘s original pick-value chart, as well as Dom Luszczyszyn’s more modern chart.
via puckpedia.com
Let’s say the Habs are attempting a trade to move up to 11th overall, a draft position currently held by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The 11th overall pick holds a value of 31.99 whereas the 17th overall pick holds a value of 22.18. Montreal needs to make up 9.81 in draft pick-value.
The 41st overall pick is worth 7.04, which means we’re getting closer, but we’re yet to offer fair value. Adding the 79th overall (2.03) and 113th overall (0.95) picks should do the trick. I’m not suggesting Pittsburgh would accept the trade, but according to pick values, it is a fair deal.
The trade would be as follows:
The Pittsburgh Penguins trade the 11th overall pick to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for the 17th, 41st, 79th, and 113th overall picks.
Moving up six spots in the first round may not be realistic, as there’s a significant drop-off in value from 11th to 16th or 17th, and teams are starting to realize receiving the sum of the parts in a trade centred on draft picks rarely works out.
If the Canadiens wanted to move up a few spots, say from 16th to 13th, the cost would be a little more reasonable.
The 13th overall pick holds a value of 28.14, while the 16th overall pick holds a value of 23.51. To make up the difference, Montreal would have to add the 49th overall pick to the mix (5.19).
The trade would be as follows:
The Detroit Red Wings trade the 13th overall pick to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for the 16th overall and 49th overall picks.
Montreal Canadiens Brass Tacks
Given the discrepancy in talent in the first round, moving up seems to almost always add more value to the organization that is acquiring the better pick. Receiving the sum of the parts may be fair value from a raw data point of view, but we also have to consider that players drafted outside the first round rarely enjoy a long career in the NHL.
With that in mind, if the Canadiens cannot use their picks to trade for an NHL-ready player, moving up in the draft, as they did last season, is probably the best way to add value to the prospect cupboard.
All Draft Pick Value via Matt Perri. Click here to see the individual pick values.
It’s such a slippery slope for me. I believe in packaging picks to move up. I’m 100% behind quality over quantity. It all comes down to the player available with the higher pick. We have the 16th and 17th picks this year. We drafted Caufield at 15th and Guhle at 16th, so there’s definitely value where we’re sitting now. There’s tons of examples throughout the league of elite players found in our present draft position. It just takes a great scouting department, great development system and a lot of luck to find them. We definitely have the first 2 criteria, so for me it comes down to luck. In the pick value chart that I’ve used for years (sorry, I don’t know who created it) the 16th and 17th picks are worth a score of 808, which according to the chart could get us pick #3. I can’t imagine any team making that deal, so imo the chart is flawed. But how flawed is it? Could it get us #10? What if a guy like McQueen drops because of concerns about his back injury? I’m making that trade all day, any day. That’s where luck comes back into play once again. Just like it did with Demidov falling to us at #5. We can certainly find good to great players at #16 & #17 with a lot of luck. We might see a fabulous prospect that fits our needs perfectly (McQueen) fall enough to get within reach with the assets we have. We might get lucky enough to find a trade partner lacking pipeline depth willing to swap the one pick for a combination several picks and/or players. But it’ll all be luck. I believe HuGo are feeling the pressure to make a big swing because of our making the playoffs ahead of schedule (also thanks to the luck of other teams in the East cratering btw). The other X factor that I don’t hear talked about much yet is the fact that this year’s draft is the first time we have a decentralized draft. I think that’s going to make it a lot harder for us to make the type of move I mentioned above. Those types of moves tend to be as the result of a couple of GMs going off together and working something out. If the GMs are now in a room full of their people trying to make a deal, I feel there’s going to be more voices of dissent that will shut that kind of stuff down. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Personally, I hate the decentralized draft. I love going to the draft and watching everything play out in front of me like a fly on the wall. There’s also the opportunity to meet prospects and executive and media personalities. I hope this a one and done type of thing and they go back to the old way for next year and beyond. That too will take a bit of luck. 😉
Fantastic analysis, thank you. On your point, quality over quantity all day. Wait for pick 11 or 12 to see who is left on the board. If there is a player ranked high on the Habs’ chart, offer up a sweet package and nab your guy, even if on “paper” you overpay.
The problem for us is there are several teams in need of centre prospects right in the range we’d hope to jump up to. The great probability favours those teams selecting the guys we’re actually after. Sadly, big jumps up in the first round rarely happen as well. I think the greatest likelihood lies in us using one or both of those picks ourselves, with trading one or both of the picks for a C already playing in the NHL that fits our age bracket as plan B. I think jumping way up in the draft is a pipe dream personally. But it is fun to hope for anyway. Our pipeline is bursting at every position so I’ve often been in favour of trading all our picks in a particular draft to grab an A++ generational type player (like Bedard recently). We can survive a year with no picks if it meant adding a player that would be at the top of the NHL for our franchise for 10-15 years. I’d be willing to do a modified version of that strategy (less, but still a lot of picks) if it got us Misa, Desnoyers or McQueen. They aren’t generational, but they should become top end players for us. We can’t let too many years elapse between our best players right now (Suzuki, Caufield, etc) before making the big splash to surround them with equally talented teammates or we risk wasting their best years waiting for our other top prospects to catch up and be ready to compete for a Cup. If we don’t go for it now and draft at the top of this draft, then plan B comes into play and that tends to be more costly because we end of sacrificing players that are ready to compete now, for kids that are 2-3 years away still. We’re taking a step back to take a step forward, so we aren’t making progress. The last resort ends up being free agency when we have to overpay guys that are already past their best years (or have a limited number left), yet require a 7yr contract to actually get them. Right now our salary cap structure is stellar with Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkovsky all signed long term to what will be bargain basement deals as the cap explodes over the next several years. Making a big UFA signing can mess that all up. It also sets a precedent for Hutson and Demidov’s future contracts. Which reminds me, we need to lock up Hutson before July 1st and not risk an offer sheet on him that would also blow up our cap structure. The sooner we do it, the better the likelihood we can keep it low enough to continue having a very healthy team cap structure. Then comes Demidov…
Yeah, i would love to meet a GM that would trade the 3rd pick for 16 and 17, and if so, I’d like to meet him by draft day, lol. Yeah, i have to agree that your current site is giving you some bad numbers there, lol.
You said players outside of the first round rarely enjoy a long career in the NHL. That’s just not true Marc.
You also claim, without support, that teams are starting to realize that getting the sum of the parts centered on draft picks rarely works out. I honestly don’t know but I suspect it’s incorrect and here’s why I hold that opinion
I have made the point many times that the “best player available “ argument is whitewash. There are 0 examples in the history of the nhl draft where a redraft would not change the order very dramatically. It’s often claimed that the Bruins 2015 where they drsfted 13/14/15 and messed up cost them Cups. Zboril, Debrusk and Senyshun were their picks and the next 3 were Barzal, Connors and Chabot. Aho was a second rounder as were Hintz, Rasmus Anderson and Vince Dunn, Greer, Cernsk,Greenway, Trenin, Carlo, and many others that were better than Bruins trio or at least two of them. 18 of the 31 taken in that round two have played at least 220 games compared to 24 in round 1. Other later first rounders include Boeser, Konneckny and Erickson Ek. That’s all in 1 draft. And there’s Kaprizov taken in the 5th round. So if the bruins took Kaprizov, Aho and Connors, how many more Cups could they have won?
Redraft the top 10 Mcdavid stays 1, Kaprizov 135, Rantanen 10, Eichel, 2 werenski 8 Marner4 Aho 35, Connors 17 Barzal 16 and Rasmus Anderson 53 or Hanafin? You may disagree with my specific order but nobody would dispute the original 10 was really wrong
Three guys from round 7 ( you mentioned round 7 as negligible) played 275 or more games including RD Matt Roy who sure would fill a void on our blue line. And while 2015 was an amazing draft class, similar results occur every year. So it’s what you do with the sum of the parts that determine the end results.
The point is that in every draft there are lots of opportunities to get better players than the draft spot they are selected., ask Lane Hutson who may end up the best player of his class despite going at 62. I’m not opposed to moving up, as the opportunity to do better is there as the models you referenced indicate and logic dictates. We have 7 picks in top 82, with at least a 50% chance of meaningful nhl careers in that range. Our group is pretty good at the draft ( comparatively) so let’s add talent. True we only have so many roster spots but it’s hard to win and you need every advantage possible so being laiden with talent is one.
I know the numbers, but since you stated it was not true, I’ll let you do the digging. Tell me how many second-round players on average enjoy long careers in the NHL. I’m talking the full 12-15 seasons range.
I think you’ll find it’s quite rare.
We’re usually talking 10 to 20 percent. It’s not a lot.
And things just get much rarer from there. If we add the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th rounds, we’re talking a negligible number of long careers in the NHL.
Cambridge Dictionary- Definition of rare:
not common or frequent; very unusual:
a rare disease/species
The museum is full of rare and precious treasures.
So 10-20% is not rare by definition.
I define a guy that plays twice as long as an average nhl career (roughly 300 games) as being successful. 600 is roughly twice the average and is significant statistically. Players outside the first round enjoying a career that last 600 games or 8 or more years and made enough money to live comfortably have done well. They had successful careers and there are lots of them.
Man you have to stop doing this. You do it way too often. Either Marc writes an article, or someone puts into one of their comments, a widely known fact/claim, the veracity of which is supported by tons of easily accessible data, but because they don’t add this data or sources, you act as if it’s wrong. As if you and you alone are privy to the truth and that these claims just MUST be false because you simply believe they are. You’re wrong, and Marc is right: players drafted after the first round are much less likely to enjoy long nhl careers, so there are much fewer players that do. You can find the data on this in seconds. Just do the research. You pointing out that there have been stars drafted later, or that redrafts would be different, does not refute Marc’s claim at all. There have been thousands of players drafted over dozens of drafts and you’re like “well here’s one draft that should’ve fallen much differently! Bam! You’re wrong!” …. Like, wut?! That’s not what that means lol.
You did the same thing with the FACT that goalies and Dmen generally take longer to develop. Just stop. You write these long winded comments with a few cherry picked data points to argue against things that are widely known to be true just so you can act like you’re enlightened or so super smart that you know something that NO ONE ELSE does… except you’re wrong… again. Just stop. Or at least do the research before you post.
Here, this literally took me 15 seconds man:
Using all draft data from 1963 to 2023
First Round
1+ NHL Games: 88.8% (1262/1420)
100+ NHL Games: 70.2% (997/1420)
300+ NHL Games: 54.5% (774/1420)
500+ NHL Games: 42.9% (610/1420)
750+ NHL Games: 25.2% (359/1420)
1000+ NHL Games: 13.5% (192/1420)
Second Round
1+ NHL Games: 68.0% (992/1458)
100+ NHL Games: 39.9% (582/1458)
300+ NHL Games: 25.1% (366/1458)
500+ NHL Games: 17.1% (250/1458)
750+ NHL Games: 8.1% (118/1458)
1000+ NHL Games: 3.3% (48/1458)
And obviously it gets worse and worse as you go through later rounds
Like geez man…. Stop doing this
Those brutal numbers are what makes it so sweet when you hit on a 2nd rounder. I am thinking our boy Hutson will be in that 3.3% group.
There you go twisting words and attacking the person. My comment about non first rounders having long careers not being rare is true and your opinion doesn’t change that fact. Habs from this year that qualify- Anderson, Gallagher, Savard, Dvorak- good contributing guys with successful careers with 3 of them taken in the middle rounds of the draft. Lots of guys like that of the thousands of players over dozens of drafts. And I stated that the models Marc provided and logic would dictate having a better probability of getting a player with a long career the earlier you draft but you seemed to have missed that point.
Where did I claim redrafts refuted Marc’s claim? Copy and paste my words. Redrafts don’t change the past. They are fun for fans and allow management teams to try and improve
I moved on to another point of best player available draft strategy is a fallacy as drafts are essentially predictions of future performance , and predictions are very difficult to be right on. Anyone in playoff pools knows this is true and drafts are much more complex than playoff pools. Draft results are always wrong against the actual historical results when a draft class is retired. Then I said excellent opportunities to get better players than the position they are selected occurs in every draft and we have a good team of talent assessors comparatively speaking which is promising with 7 picks in the top 80ish. I mentioned Hutson as a recent example. All facts, not opinion.
The Blue Jackets are a team that reportedly will make either of their two first round picks available for trade . They are at #14 and #20 . After that their next selections are in the third round (77) and then at (109 ) in round four . (No 2nd rounder)
Could CBJ be interested in one of the Habs 2nd round picks ? The Habs could offer to trade up from #17 to #14 with the #49 going to Columbus . Might be worth considering .
And then bundle 14 with 16 to go even higher…
For me, it’s fun to speculate what Montreal might do at/around the draft, but that said, I’m not sure there’s much point trying to price what a move up will cost. The reason for that is that the draft is too fluid, and more and more it seems teams will go off the board to grab the guy they like. Like Anaheim taking Beckette Sennecke 3rd instead of Demidov. Many teams picking in the top 10 will have a few guys they covet, and there will be a point at which they feel there’s not much difference between picks from X range to Y range (say, 8th- 12th, as an example), so they’ll trade down a certain distance, hoping they can get the guy they want later. Habs may do that themselves even. Without knowing what other teams will do, or not do, it’s just too hard to figure out. It’s rare teams make a move like that without a wait and see til draft day attitude.
I hope Hughes doesn’t squander anymore 1st round picks on other teams’ reclamation projects like Dach and Newhook. I also wonder, after their comments that said, ‘there are other ways to build your offence than through the middle,’ if Hughes and Gorton are going to make a play for Mitch Marner. Time will tell, I guess. I’m looking forward to finding out very soon.
I interpreted Gorton’s comment about lines not necessarily having to be driven by a centre as “We think Demidov can drive our 2nd line like Kaprizov (one of Demidov’s idols) does” instead of “We’re going to go out and get Marner”. My guess is if we do anything this summer to get a 2C, it’ll be for not a marquee guy with big term and money, but rather a 2yr max contract for a cagey vet. My reasoning comes from Hughes’s comment about not wanting to block the path of the young guys (Hage imo) and our actions last summer when we didn’t get Marchessault because we wouldn’t budge off a 2yr contract and give him more term.
In the first NHL draft which took place in 1963 there were only 6 teams, so the 7th pick
came in the second round. In 1971 when Larry Robinson was selected in the second
round there were only 14 teams, so by todays standard, one could argue that Larry Robinson was a first round draft pick since he was chosen 20th overall.
I can see the logic there, but there were only 130 nhl players in 1963 so the ratios are the same – one first round pick per franchise per year.
Looking at the same data, how many 2023 draftees have had long successful careers?
That is a good point. Because there were fewer NHL teams, the AHL teams had more NHL calibre players. For example when Larry Robinson was playing for the AHL Nova Scotia Voyageurs, most of him teammates went on to have respectable careers in the NHL and or the WHL.
I saw Robinsons protege, Rod Langway play for the Vees in Halifax just before getting called up to Montreal. I was floored by his ice generalship. Perhaps my two all time favourite Habs dmen but Hutson is building a case….
So the 16th and 17th together should get the 6th or 7th?
I personally think we’ll be hard pressed to find a team to move back into 16/17 this year. If we do, it would be a team in the 8-12 category who saw their “guy” get picked and Hughes still sees someone he really wants.
Other than that I think he waits to see who’s available for 16/17 then decides to make a trade or simply make his selections. If Carbonneau & Hensler are still on the board, I say he makes the picks. If one or both are gone, I say he makes a splash trade. This draft may be considered weaker but if he simply selects correctly with all the picks it will still be a successful draft. Dangle the 2026 picks as trade bait.
Just my opinion but I wouldn’t be upset if he made those picks and made splashes after the draft. Sign Ehlers (sounds like it’s a possibility) and OS/trade for Rossi, or trade for ROR, or sign a Bennett/Duchene.
He’s obviously going to work all the angles and see what kind of deals are available I just don’t think he’ll be able to move up this year, save for one or two positions. If we get really lucky we’ll be in the 8-12 category but I seriously doubt it.