An organization’s top prospects are usually players drafted early, with the team’s own picks.
The first two in class at the Canadian, Sean Farrell and Lane Hutson were instead obtained with later choices, acquired beforehand for support defenders.
Montreal defender Marco Scandella played barely twenty games for the Canadiens in 2020. But his acquisition is worth its weight in gold today.
Marc Bergevin got it on January 2, 2020 from the Buffalo Sabers against a fourth-round pick. Montreal still had a slim hope of qualifying for the playoffs and who knows if Scandella, 29, was going to agree to give up his full autonomy at the end of the season and extend his career in Montreal.
But by the trade deadline seven weeks later, the CH had no hope of retail participation, and the St. Louis Blues made an irresistible offer for Scandella: a 2020 second-round pick and a fourth-round pick. in 2021 (provided Scandella signs a contract extension with the Blues, which he did).
The draft came and at the end of the second round, at 57th place, the Tampa Bay Lightning had a certain Jack Finley* in their sights, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound center. The Lightning offer their second-round pick the following year and a fifth-round pick in 2020 for that pick.
Montreal will choose Sean Farrell with the final pick of the fourth round, not without having opted for Jack Smith and Blake Biondi beforehand. Farrell expected to be drafted much sooner after a 56-point, 44-game season in Chicago, USHL, but his short stature worked against him.
The Canadian picked Finnish center Oliver Kapanen late in the second round (64th overall) the following year with Tampa’s pick and defender William Trudeau with the Blues’ fourth-round pick (113th overall), since Scandella signed a contract with St. Louis at the end of the 2020 season.
Kapanen, 19, was the captain of the Finnish team at the World Junior Championship and he has just amassed 27 points in 55 games in the Finnish first division (SM-Liiga). He is still far in the hierarchy of young centers at the Canadian, but he is still a legitimate hope.
Trudeau has made amazing progress this winter in his first season in the American League. He became a mainstay with the Laval Rocket at just 20 years old and his future looks bright.
Defenseman Brett Kulak was acquired from the Calgary Flames in October 2018 for two American League players, Matt Taormina and Rinat Valiev*. The latter had been acquired six months earlier from the Toronto Maple Leafs with a second-round pick for Tomas Plekanec.
Flames GM Brad Treliving must have seen potential in Valiev, then 22, since Kulak had just established himself in the NHL the previous season.
Kulak was useful to the Canadian for almost four years, but never managed to break into the top four on a regular basis.
He was reliable enough, however, to make the Edmonton Oilers salivate heading into the playoffs last year. Kent Hughes earned their 2022 second-round pick and a 2024 seventh-round pick for his services at the trade deadline. A price slightly lower than that paid by the Blues for Scandella.
Kulak did well enough in the playoffs in Edmonton to land a nice $10 million four-year contract last summer. Still, he remains a supporting defenseman for the Oilers, in a third pair, averaging 17 minutes per game.
The Oilers’ breakthrough in the playoffs (conference final) dropped the second-round pick eight spots. But young defender Lane Hutson was still available at No. 62. As with Farrell, Hutson was handicapped by his short stature. However, he had a medical certificate attesting to growth retardation, nothing helped.
Not only is Hutson having a sensational season – the word is weak – with 47 points in 36 NCAA games, one point behind Brian Leetch’s all-time record for most points scored by a defenseman in the NCAA. season following his draft, but the 19-year-old went from 5-foot-8 and 148 pounds to 5-foot-10 and 164 pounds!
Farrell and Hutson, outrageously dominant in the American college ranks this winter, will also have the opportunity to continue their season in the coming days during the NCAA playoffs: Hutson and Boston University face Western Thursday, Farrell and Harvard will face Ohio State and its monstrous goalkeeper Jakub Dobes, another CH hope.
Farrell, 21, 52 points in just 33 games at Harvard, is expected to join the Canadiens once his team is eliminated. Hutson is expected to play an additional season at Boston University.
Two short players drafted late, two short players drafted thanks to picks obtained for support defensemen at the dawn of their full free agency, two short players including the next NHL coach, Martin St -Louis, will be able to easily understand their journey and their pitfalls…
However, we did not give much of the skin of the Penguins, Wednesday night in Colorado, against the Avalanche, with six consecutive victories. Pittsburgh had just suffered four straight losses.
But Sidney Crosby set the tone with the first goal of the game in the first minute of the second period and Pittsburgh won against all odds 5-2.
The Penguins momentarily regain the last playoff spot, one point ahead of the Florida Panthers. Both sides have eleven games left to play.
The captain of the Penguins took the opportunity to break a record: he became the first player in history to score at least 30 goals at 18 and 35 years old. This is his eleventh season of 30 or more career goals.
“In your first season you want to prove that you belong in the League and even at 35 you still have things to prove because the League is getting younger,” Crosby told reporters after the game.
