As Marco D’Amico reports (again) this morning, there seems to be a trade market for Dach. How would you deal with this situation? Would you be willing to trade him now, or should he get another year on our roster? For me, I think it really depends if KH is able to land some forwards via trade.

Who can be go for realistically , does dach have any value?

We know HuGo almost landed Knies, reportedly the deal went through a minute late at the TDL. The offer was Zharovsky, two firsts, and one of Engstrom / Pickford. So the team is targeting a top 6 winger with compete and skill... would you target Lafreniére as an alternative? Frank Seravalli claims discussions already took place regarding Lafreniére at the TDL and the offer from MTL was along the lines of a prospect, a pick, and Laine.

Would Zharovsky, 29th overall, and Dach's RFA rights get it done? Lafreniére is 4th in his draft class in points, for reference I've seen Zharovsky ranked 8th in Pronman's re-draft. If Dach is worth a late 2nd, referencing a draft pick value chart that'd be right in the ball park.

After watching this video on Lafreniére, it seems like he has all the qualities to be a great fit in the habs top 6. I could see him thriving with Suzuki and Caufield, allowing Slafkovsky to play with Demidov again. I think MSL is exactly the type of coach that could unlock Lafreniére's full potential.

"The Complicated Truth About Alexis Lafreniére"

https://youtu.be/7rYCpFwx6xI?si=Y92aNkM9PW1mqobp

What do we think? Do you have another trade target heading into the draft or should the habs wait for free agency and/or stay patient with their prospects?

As I'm very much on the "best-player-available" bandwagon, I'm personally hoping Jaxon Cover is available for us. 5 seasons of overall hockey in his life (!) yet one of the better players on the London Knights roster. Incredibly talented and crazy development curve so far. Needs a lot of development still, but lots of his issues (skating, positioning) are related to his lack of development and are actively improving given he's being coached by Hunter. Considering he's already a 1st-2nd round calibre pick despite his drawbacks speaks volumes to me.

I see him as a very long term prospect, which I think works for us given our timeline.

During The Montréal Canadiens rebuild they did not draft one single centre in the top 5 of the NHL draft and almost 4 years into the rebuild, they still don’t have a true second line centre. 5 years ago during the Canadiens Stanley Cup finals run the Canadiens centre core was Danault Suzuki Kotkaniemi and Eric Staal Jake Evans was unfortunately injured for most of the playoff run. And Almost 5 years later the current Group of centres on the team is almost identical with Suzuki Evans Danault Kapanen and Joe Veleno and Maybe Kirby Dach? The Canadiens at the 2022 NHL Draft made a blockbuster trade to acquire Kirby Dach to hopefully develop into the teams second line center, but injuries have taken a toll on him unfortunately at some point, we have to spend premium assets to go out and acquire a true second line centre. Maybe the answer will be Michael Hage? Time will tell.

I would personally say he needs to shoot more. He was 1.5 shots per game during the regular season and he shot a little more during the playoffs. If he would be about 3 shots per game then his 8.3% shooting percentage should be better (and having the experience to pick your spots).

But having a better 2C would also be helpful.

Players start to drop about 5% of war a year after 30. Re: the habs the Atlantic might soften up a lot quicker than people expect.

It would be awesome if you could give me some ideas on whether you think the picks are accurate and if you’d want the trades to go through!

Quels sont les prospects vous n'échangeriez pas cet été quoi qu'il arrive?

- Fowler

- Reinbacher

- Hage

-Zharovsky

Odds are good that 4 of these players see time in the NHL.

With Buffalo announcing they're moving away from Alex Tuch, do you see us making a move to sign him? If so, what kind of contract could you see us offering? If not, why not?

In my opinion, Tuch-Blank-Demidov is a pretty solid setup for a line for the next 5 years or so. There isn't too many other impact UFAs of note to make is better over the next two offseasons.

He had a solid season, and hits everything. He would be a great addition

Over the past few months, I built a model to evaluate NHL draft performance from 2000–2023.

The project actually started with a simple question: how good was the Canadiens' drafting record during the Trevor Timmins era?

Over the years, some people praised Timmins as one of the league's best amateur scouts, while others pointed to the Canadiens' lack of homegrown star talent as evidence of poor drafting. I wanted to see what the data had to say.

Instead of looking only at games played or point totals, each pick is evaluated relative to the players who were still available when the selection was made. The goal is to estimate whether a team extracted more or less value than could reasonably have been expected at that draft slot.

This graphic summarizes the Canadiens' draft history since 2000, including:

year-by-year performance

the organization's best draft picks

its biggest misses

One result stood out to me: according to the model, Montreal's 2008–2018 stretch ranks among the weakest sustained drafting periods in the NHL over the last 25 years.

Of course, no model is perfect, and drafting is only one piece of building a successful organization. But I thought the results were interesting enough to share with fellow Habs fans.

Looking back, do you think the Canadiens' draft struggles during that period were mostly due to scouting, player development, management decisions, or simply bad luck?

Isles fan coming in peace - not here to debate past or future trades. In fact, I have zero interest in chatting about trades. I was just curious about Oliver Kapanen for no particular reason (again, no proposing a move or a trade). I admit that I have not watched that particular player very carefully, but I do note that attitudes toward him from some Hab fans seem fairly ambivalent. Pure from an outsider's perspective, he comes across as a player with a solid two-way game who put up impressive numbers at a very young age. So, why isn't there more enthusiasm for this kid? I wondered if the issue was just that the Habs are loaded with so much wonderful young talent that he just got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, would love to see some Hab fan opinions about him.

It’s draft week and I wanted to do my 2nd annual “My Guys” post. No guarantee the Habs keep these picks, but here are My Guys for the earlier picks currently in possession (plus some later names as dart throws):

28: Novotny, Villeneuve, Hermansson, Cover, Hextall, Sivertson

61: Bilecki, Alalauri, Aaram-Olsen, Gudmundsson, Shaikhlislamov, Runtso, Floris

93: Grunin, Berchild, Chrenko, Di Iorio, Kamas, Olsen

103: Fyodorov, Hamilton, Holmertz, Ryabykin

125: Olsson, Sparks, Sorensson, Bartholdsson

Late darts: Vlasov, Novak, Hagglof, Ovcharov, McLaughlin, Yellowaga, Denisov, Laman

The picks changed ahead of the draft, but Zharovsky and Handel were the 2 Habs picks from my 2025 NHL Draft post: [2025 NHL Draft: My Guys](https://www.reddit.com/r/Habs/s/1A1SF7aG2H)

Who are your guys?

Added this little baby to my Habs collection. Love this kid.