Consensus is that Montreal came away with what amounts to highway robbery.
Habs fans are feeling good right now.
Contrast that with the 2023 draft when the CH also had the No. 5 pick and used it to take Austrian defenceman David Reinbacher. I was at McLean’s Pub shooting a What the Puck video when that happened, and immediate reaction from fans on hand was far from positive. Since then, I think the fan base has reconciled with the selection of the six-foot-two D-man, but there’s no question that folks in the Habs Nation most definitely wanted the team to pick a forward this time ’round, and the fact it turned out to be a hyped, possible scoring star made the selection all the better.
The reality is that we’ll only know for sure how good Demidov is in four or five years, but everything points to this being a good pick. Even better, the Habs also nabbed another good young player in the first round, using their second pick at the No. 21 slot to snare Michael Hage. He’s a six-foot centre who grew up loving the Canadiens even though he was born in Oakville, Ont. That’s because his parents are from Montreal and his dad, who died in a pool accident last year, was a hardcore Habs fan. In a public relations dream come true for the team, Hage also speaks French.
Montreal didn’t do much in the free agent market, which opened Monday, but most of us didn’t expect them to. As has been the case for years, free agency has mostly been about teams overpaying for veterans, and that clearly makes no sense for a team in the midst of a rebuild. One of the bigger signings was Quebec player Jonathan Marchessault, who inked a five-year, $5.5-million-per-year deal with the Nashville Predators. Marchessault said he was in pretty serious negotiations with Hughes, but in the end, the Habs GM decided to step away from throwing so much cash at a 33-year-old player.
I, like most, felt that was the right call by Hughes. Shocked as you might be to hear this, the CH won’t be competing for the Cup next season. My savvy hockey buddies say the Cup run is pencilled in for 2030. So you can forget about Marchessault being part of that.
Montreal did make one minor play in free agency, signing a one-year pact with Québécois forward Alex Barré-Boulet. But that’s obviously just an effort to have one more francophone on the team to handle the local media requests. In all likelihood, he’ll split his time between the fourth line on the downtown team and the Laval Rocket.
The best news this week for Habs fans — aside from the Demidov pick — was Juraj Slafkovský signing an $60.8-million, eight-year deal that locks the big Slovakian winger in through 2032-33. If the second half of last season is any indication, then this is an amazing bargain for Montreal. In the last 41 games of the season, he scored 16 goals and had 35 points.
Bottom line is that Jeff Gorton and Hughes have assembled the most promising group of young players on the Canadiens in decades. Just look at the list: Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Slafkovský, Alex Newhook, Kirby Dach, Kaiden Guhle, Reinbacher, Lane Hutson, Demidov. That’s pretty exciting.
But — hey, there’s always a “but” — right here, right now, the team that Hughes will be icing next season will be pretty well the same team that finished fifth from the bottom last season. It’s a lineup that in all likelihood will include not-so-exciting players like Christian Dvorak, Brendan Gallagher, Joel Armia, and Josh Anderson. As in, to be polite, a rather rough bottom six.
Knowing Montreal fans, come January, if they’re struggling near the bottom of the Atlantic division, the fans are going to get restless. My advice to management is to not listen to the post-game radio phone-in shows in order to preserve their sanity and stick to the plan.
If it’s a rough year, and it might well be, then my fearless prediction is the fan base will be evenly split between those demanding to win now and the more patient folks who keep repeating the mantra, In Hugo (Hughes and Gorton) We Trust.