Without batting an eyelid, Kent Hughes said that with 72 hours to go before the National Hockey League (NHL) draft, the organization has not yet made up its mind regarding the identity of the player it will select at the very first place. Thursday night!
It’s a little strong coffee. Very strong even.
A chance that the draft does not take place at the end of June as usual, because they would have probably decided that to a coin
launched a deadpan laugh.
One thing is certain, we are very far from Patrick Roy who, in 2013, immediately cut short the game of comparisons between Nathan MacKinnon and Seth Jones. Roy had cut Jones out of the equation military hands. And he went further by saying that it would be very difficult for the Avalanche not to select the Halifax Mooseheads forward.
For those who may have forgotten, it was Seth Jones, not MacKinnon, who topped the NHL Central Scouting list that year.
Roy’s statements certainly clashed with established conventions. But at the same time, this approach sent a clear message to MacKinnon: You are our man, we trust you and there is no hesitation on our part.
We understand very well that the league prefers that the identity of the first choice be revealed on the evening of the draft. After all, broadcasters pay dearly for the privilege of broadcasting their games and events. And the higher the ratings of these partners, the higher the price of acquisition of the next TV rights is likely to be too.
Not to mention the thousands of spectators who, incredibly, have paid large sums to obtain tickets. At the time of this writing, only general admission tickets, offering seats on the upper levels of the Bell Centre, were still available for Thursday evening.
It’s been 42 years since the CH did not hold the first choice of a selection session. The side historical
of this evening certainly contributes to this frenzy at the counters.
That said, there is a fine line between pleading indecision and simply telling media representatives that a choice has been made and will only be revealed on the draft floor.
It’s not hesitation. We just want to be sure that our homework is done. We also want to allow all our recruiters to make their voices heard
explained Kent Hughes.
When I relayed this to them, two NHL scouts spontaneously burst out laughing.
The Canadiens’ recruiters, of course, have already done their homework. And twice rather than once, we must believe, since they rely on two co-directors of amateur recruitment in Martin Lapointe and Nick Bobrov. During the Habs’ end-of-season review, Kent Hughes also said that the organization’s priority was to prepare for the draft. And that’s what happened.
By playing the card we are not sure
and you we still want to do more checks
the management sends its future first choice ambiguous signals.
The proof that the team has painstakingly done their homework lies in a host of details. Like these offers, launched for several weeks, to organizations which will choose in the middle of the first round.
The Canadian is very combative in his intention to trade quantity to better position himself, especially in the first round. The team has 14 choices in this session.
The teams approached by Kent Hughes were offered the 26th and 33rd selections (the 33rd selection being the first of the second round) in exchange for their position in the middle of the first round.
Montreal recruiters are not caves. Like everyone else, they can see that there is a kind of break in this repechage (a drop in talent) around 19th position. On the other hand, the first choice of the second round, it’s worth gold. The day following the first round, the GMs who hold the first picks of the second round receive heaps of calls. Everyone wants them! So the Canadian’s offer is certainly attractive for many teams
says a recruiter from a club in the West.
It now remains to be seen how the rest of the poker game will play out.
The Habs have every interest in concluding this market as quickly as possible in order to be able to use a possible choice of midfielder in the first round, by improving it, to advance further inside the top 5 or the top 10.
On the other hand, teams positioned in the middle of the first round have every interest in waiting until the very last second to conclude such a deal. If you trade, say, your 15th pick too quickly and a player you had placed in the top 10 is still available at 15th echelon, you might be biting your fingers. It is therefore better to keep the CH offer up your sleeve and take the time to see if the session will take an unexpected direction.
For the rest, the supporters of the team learned nothing significant during this press briefing. It was certainly necessary to be equipped with a decoder with a high degree of sensitivity to capture all the nuances of the speech offered by Kent Hughes and Vincent Lecavalier.
For example, it was remarkable that the leaders insist that there are always three players in the race in their eyes, which leaves in the portrait the American center Logan Cooley, the Canadian center Shane Wright and the big Slovak winger Juraj Slafkovsky.
Kent Hughes also returned on several occasions to the fact that the purpose of the exercise is not to establish the best player at 18, but rather who will be the best at 22, 23, or 24. Again, by all accounts, Cooley appears to be the player with the highest development potential.
Hughes has often said that the familiarity
with a hope (having seen him play over a period of years) is an essential aspect of the recruiting process. In that sense, it was impressive to hear the GM list all the competitions and all the levels he has seen Shane Wright play in the past. Agents, it is known, recruit their potential clients around the age of 13-14 years.
Lecavalier also pointed out that it was difficult to assess a prospect in a team that offers him little playing time, which was a direct allusion to Slafkovsky.
Moreover, the call that Vincent Lecavalier made to Shane Wright undoubtedly proved to be a very instructive exercise for the Canadian.
That said, what were we trying to find out with this call? Did we really want to know how Wright handled the pressure of being seen as the future No. 1 pick in the draft, or did we want to understand why Wright’s offensive production fell short of expectations?
In short, we only have three days left to try to read the tea leaves.
