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Beckett Sennecke, the habs’ choice if Demidov was no longer available?
Marc-Olivier Cook
Beckett Sennecke, the habs’ choice if Demidov was no longer available?
Credit: Getty Images
The order of the first five picks in the last draft was as follows.

  1. Sharks
  2. Blackhawks
  3. Ducks
  4. Blue Jackets
  5. habs

It’s no secret: Kent Hughes and his associates had Ivan Demidov in their sights. The habs organization loved him… and they were able to select him with the 5th pick since Demidov was still available.

Did the Sharks, Hawks, Ducks, and Jackets make a mistake by deciding not to select Demidov? Maybe. We’ll have the answer to that question in a few years only.

But if Demidov had been picked in the top-4… Who would have been the choice of Kent Hughes and the habs?

Elliotte Friedman (32 Thoughts Podcast) has his opinion on that:

If Demidov had been taken, I really wonder if Beckett Sennecke was the habs’ choice. – Elliotte Friedman

Friedman says that because the Blackhawks wanted to draft a defenseman and because the Blue Jackets really wanted Cayden Lindstrom.

We knew that Macklin Celebrini was going to be picked 1st… But it’s especially the Ducks’ pick that changed the game for the habs.

And as Friedman said in his podcast: all the better for the habs, because they were drooling at the idea of having Ivan Demidov in their kitchen.

We must also remember that it’s because of Ivan Demidov that the habs didn’t trade for Trevor Zegras’ services.

There was an offer on the table that involved Logan Mailloux and the pick used to select Michael Hage (according to Marco Normandin’s info from the Habsolument Fan site) to get Trevor Zegras and a 2nd round pick from Anaheim, but the transaction never materialized.

Kent Hughes had the opportunity to draft a player with enormous potential in Ivan Demidov at 5th overall and that led him not to make the trade.

So, it’s safe to say that in the end, the habs could have ended up with Trevor Zegras and (potentially) Beckett Sennecke within the organization.

Sennecke had success this season in the OHL (36 goals and 86 points in 56 games), Zegras is no longer the player he used to be (12 goals and 31 points only in 54 games this season)… And on the other hand, Ivan Demidov dominated the KHL in his 18-year-old season.

Ultimately, we can believe that the habs had the upper hand in the end. It’s difficult to say because we haven’t seen Sennecke or Demidov play in the National League… but in terms of the potential of the two guys, Demidov seems to have a clear advantage over Sennecke.

In terms of talent, Demidov could give the habs more than Sennecke AND Zegras combined.

And with the reaction of the fans to Ivan Demidov’s arrival in Canada, I tend to believe that they are quite satisfied with the turn of events.


Overtime

– Allez, Monty!

– Wow.

– Nice photo!

– A walk in the park tonight. 6-2 habs.

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