Sunday, June 22, 2008

2008 Draft: Habs land a playmaker and a bunch of kids Carbo will never see in a Habs uniform

In Bob We Trust - specifically, we trust that the guy he just traded for isn't the second coming of Denis Savard circa 1990. At least he got in on the trade action, which saw 13 first round picks traded.
...Oh, and the Habs picked a few 17 and 18 year olds that won't be wearing a Habs jersey before Guy Carbonneau gets the axe. Here's a quick recap (of the picks)/preview (of the players we may one day see at the Bell Centre - probably because they bought tickets).

1st Round/25 Overall
TRADED FOR Alex Tanguay (LW)
Key Stat: Born in La Belle Province
Grew up a Nordiques fan, but after enduring Iron Mike and the defensive shackles in Calgary for a couple of years, he should be feeling good about a move to an offensive-oriented team - he did waive his No Trade clause to come to MTL. Time will tell if he's better than Greg Nemisz (the guy Calgary drafted 25th), but right now - and more importantly, for this centennial year - there is no question Montreal won this trade. It's also nice to see Montreal pick up a player at a discount, instead of giving them away at 10 cents on the dollar (see Lemieux, Claude. Damn you Sylvain Turgeon!).

2nd Round/56 Overall
Danny Kristo (RW)
Key Stat: 18 goals in 47 games (USHL)
Shockingly, the Habs reach out for an American for their first pick. Sound familiar? Timmons must be banging some NCAA recruiter. Anyway, there is no way this guy is in the Komo/Fisher/McDonough/Pacioretty category. Playing the equivalent of high school hockey, Kristo seems to be in the Marty St Louis mould: a small, quick scorer with soft hands. Also extremely young, he's a year away from even starting college. It'll be awhile before we hear about him contending for a roster spot.

3rd Round/86 Overall
Steve Quailer (RW)
Key Stat: 6'3"
Tall, but lean winger with "lots of potential" i.e. "we hope we didn't screw up with this pick because he was rated 130th overall before the draft." Also off to college this year. This also adds another winger to Montreal's stable of prospects, a position in which they had the least depth going into the draft

4th Round/116 Overall
Jason Missiaen (G)
Key stat: 6'08"
Dude's big. Really big. Has been the backup to Trevor Cann (OHL All-Star) in the Pete, getting off the bench just 18 times last year, but at least improved his stats this season. Hopefully he will be their starter next year. Likely another long-term project destined to go the Yann Danis route in Hamilton as Carey Price racks up Vezinas in Montreal.

5th Round/138 Overall (acquired from Calgary)
Maxim Trunev (F)
Key Stat: 1 game in Russian Elite League this year
Supposedly a highly skilled winger, this will likely be one of those home run or strikeout type picks. Let's call him the next Datsyuk, just for kicks, rather than the next Perezhogin. Even if he's any good, who knows when we might see him come over to North America **coughAlexeiEmelincough**

7th Round/206 overall
Patrick Johnson (C)
Key State: 7th Round selection
Oh look, another young American kid on his way to college. Way to think outside the box, fellas. That's ok, we're too distracted sewing Tanguay's name onto our old Ryder jersey to care.

Now that the draft is over, 10 days to UFA season! We'll hopefully get around to previewing that for you. And hopefully said preview will involve the signing of a certain Swedish centre who used to play his hockey on Quebec. If so: suck it, T.O.!

3 comments:

moeman said...

Nice recap.

Also, about T-dot sucking it. Looks like their #1 pick is a natural with his ' leaf are Canada's team' slag. Jerk.

moeman said...

Wanna feel 'old';

"The Canadiens used their seventh-round pick (206th) on U.S. high school center Patrick Johnson, the grandson of Penguins Stanley Cup-winning coach "Badger" Bob Johnson, and son of Mark Johnson, a member of the U.S. "Miracle on Ice" 1980 Olympic team."

Young HF29 said...

whoa whoa intelligent draft analysis of actual hockey? i didn't sign up for this

good job Panger. had i know we were drafting a 6'8" goalie i might have watched