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Espoirs: the Habs must not make the same mistake as the Sabres

 Sarah Jones
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Espoirs: the Habs must not make the same mistake as the Sabres
Credit: Getty Images

For the past few years, the Canadian has been quite clearly focused on the future. The club is trying to get as many prospects as possible, and by the same token, it’s trying to get quality.

And by doing so, the club’s bank of prospects is very, very solid.

That said, even if many prospects aren’t yet ready to make the jump to the NHL (or even the AHL), the fact remains that the effects of congestion are already being felt. On the blue line, for example, there are already a lot of young defensemen (Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, Jayden Struble and Justin Barron, among others)… and guys like Lane Hutson, Logan Mailloux and David Reinbacher haven’t arrived yet.

Not for nothing will there be battles at training camp… not to mention the fact that Mike Matheson and David Savard will be taking veteran spots.

On the other hand, even if he’s a little less offensive right now, he will be in a few years’ time. Grant McCagg believes that the Habs currently have 12 top-9 players in their organization…

And so, inevitably, there will soon be a lot (too many) of them.

Right now, the Habs’ strength lies in the depth of their prospect pool, which is overflowing with quality. That said, a large number of prospects can be a strength… but when it comes time to graduate them all, it can quickly become a problem.

And that’s where Steven Ellis’ warning about the danger of following the Sabres’ model becomes interesting.

In Buffalo, there are so many prospects that the club almost doesn’t know what to do with them. The club traded Matthew Savoie, a fine forward prospect, for veteran Ryan McLeod… because they were running out of spots in town.

Savoie, a high first-round pick, has the potential to become a much better player than McLeod. That said, the Sabres don’t have the space to give him an offensive role that would allow him to explode… and they’ve waited too long to maximize his value.

In Montreal, we suspect that Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovský, Kirby Dach and Ivan Demidov will be in the top-6 in the future. Then, guys like Michael Hage, Joshua Roy and Alex Newhook will be fighting for the remaining spot… assuming the club doesn’t add another high-quality young forward in the meantime.

Remember that the Habs have nine picks in the first four rounds of the upcoming amateur auction. If they use all those picks (which I don’t expect they will), there’s going to be a lot of congestion.

Eventually, therefore, it will be important for the Habs to capitalize on the depth of their prospect bank by trading some of them.

There’s a good chance the club will lose some of these trades… but sometimes, it’s better to risk losing a deal now than to lose the full value of some prospects who won’t have a chance to develop because of the surplus of young players in the organization.


In Overtime

– Jeff Marek confirms his departure from Sportsnet.

– Things are happening in MLB, including Toronto.

– Beautiful images.

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