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Best and worst drafts
posted by Mike Boone at 9h46 EST on Jun 14
Contrast the 2007 bumper crop to the Canadiens draft in 1999. The team had no first-round picks. Russian LW Alexander Buturlin, chosen in the second round (39th overall) never played a game in the NHL. Of the 11 players drafted by the Canadiens in '99, onlly second-rounder Matt Carkner made it to the NHL – for one game!
1976 was a great year in Montreal. Canadiens won the Cup, the city had the Olympic Games. But the draft was a bust: Peter Lee, Rod Schutt and Bruce Baker in the first round.
I would rate 1971 as the Canadiens' best draft: Guy Lafleur, picked first overall with the choice Sam Pollock had winkled out of Frank Selke,Jr., who was running the last-place California Golden Seals; then Chuck Arnason and Murray Wilson, also in the first round, and Larry Robinson in the second round.
1974 wasn't too shabby either. Pollock had FIVE first-round picks and used them to take Cam Connor, Doug Risebrough, Rick Chartraw, Mario Tremblay and Gord McTavish.
The team's best first-round picks? Lafleur, Steve Shutt in 1972, Bob Gainey in '73 and Saku Koivu in '93.
Worst first-rounders: Goaltender Ray Martyniuk, a 1970 pick who never played a game in the NHL. Neither did defenceman Robin Sadler, fifth overall in 1975, LW Alain Héroux (1982) or defenceman Brent Bilodeau (1991). Lindsay Vallis, a RW chosen in 1989, played one NHL game, and LW Terry Ryan, a first-rounder in '95, played a grand total of eight games.
Canadiens had no first-round choices in 1979. But it was a good year: Mats Naslund in the second round, Guy Carbonneau in the third.
And as you contemplate how NHL teams managed to draft 209 players ahead of Henrik Zetterberg in 1999, consider this honour roll of Canadiens' lower-round gems:
Bill Nyrop, 5th round, 66th overall in 1972
Keith Acton, 6th round, 78th overall and Chris Nilan, 19th round, 231st in '78
Mike McPhee, 6th round, 80th in '80
Lyle Odelein, 7th round, 141st in '86
Sean Hill, 8th round, 167th in '88
Craig Conroy, 6th round, 123rd in '90
Oleg Petrov, 6th round, 127th in '91
Darcy Tucker, 6th round, 151st in '93
Tomas Vokoun, 9th round, 226th in '94
Stépahne Robidas, 7th round, 164th in '95
Andrei Markov, 6th round, 162nd and Michael Ryder, 8th round, 216th in '98.
Jaroslav Halak, 9th round, 271st in '03
Mark Streit, 9th round, 262nd in '04
Sergei Kostitsyn, 7th round, 200th in '05.
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Did Andrew Conboy not sign a multi-year deal recently? I thought I read it somewhere. Another piece to the puzzle and the type of player the Habs need.
Once again Jacques Martin was a thorn in the foot for the beloved Sens , having sent the urgently needed Gary Roberts to the Pens last year and now he scoops their 1st choice for head coach , Peter DeBoer , from under their wings. The thrill of victory and the happiness in revenge. Jacques "The Nemesis" Martin.
Be Happy that Deboer is not your head coach in Ottawa. The sens need someone who will kick them up and down the ice, and Hartsburg is one tough bastard. DeBoer is a Players Coach, makes you feel happy and cuddles you when you cry, they don't need that anyways, and Roberts would have made 0 difference. They need to move Spezza for a player with no v****a.
A Sens fan couldn't say it any better.
THAT Ron Wilson was drafted in 1975 by the Maple Leafs.
I would nominate the 1984 draft as one of the Habs' best ever. Petr Svoboda 5th, Shane Corson 8th, Stephane Richer 29th and Patrick Roy 51st. And as a point of interest, Sidney Crosby's dad, Troy, was the Habs' twelfth-rounder that year.
http://habsloyalist.blogspot.com
That was Serge Savard. Like it or not, Serge has been the best GM the Habs have had since Pollack. Not Bob Gainey. Serge won two cups without exceptional talent. Gainey hasn't won anything yet. He may, but until he does, he's not up there amongst the greatest of Habs GMs.
Not to defend Mr. Gainey but he has won a cup...albeit, not with the right team.
Also, I'm confused by your statement: "Serge won two cups without exceptional talent".
Since it's the GMs job to aquire talent then whom should we credit with winning those two cups?
And Serge didn't stop there. He drafted Shayne Corson the following year. Koivu was also his pick. He was a smart GM. And I have nothing but fond memories of him. Both as a player and as the GM of the greatest hockey franchise on the planet. He treated it as such and I respect him for that. I wish he owned the team. In fact, a few years ago he led a consortium of businessmen looking to acquire the team.
I was also a big fan of Savard as general manager until he "jumped the shark" in the summer of 1990. The Chris Chelios trade was the beginning of the end of Savard's tenure with the Habs and began a slide that our current general manager is only now beginning to fix.
I mean, aside from Saku Koivu can we name even a couple of decent picks that Savard made from 1990 to his departure in 1995?
And while there were still some good deals like getting Kirk Muller for Stephane Richer, there was also some doozies.
Remember trading Claude Lemieux for Sylvain Turgeon?
Or how about acquiring Mark Recchi for John Leclair, Eric Desjardins, and Gilbert Dionne?
Or trading Guy Carbonneau for Jim Montgomery?
Or trading Kirk Muller and Mathieu Schneider for Pierre Turgeon and Vladmir Malakhov?
And how could we forget the shabby treatment afforded Larry Robinson near the end of his days here?
Nothing but fond memories ??? For some of us we'll remember Serge as being the gm who pulled the trigger on about half of the ten worst trades in club history and started the Habs on the path to dismalness by the end of the nineties.
T.C
tc.denault@habsworld.net
Even after the Chelios trade, Serge won a Cup. After that, he panicked, thinking his team was better than it was. The Leclair trade was poor. And sure, he didn't draft well in the 90's. But I'll guarantee you that if Serge had been GM in 1995 when Patrick Roy had his tirade he wouldn't have traded him to Colorado without demanding a superstar in return. The beginning of the end began there for the Habs. Serge, if given a chance, would have rebuilt the team if Molson had allowed him. The Habs weren't that bad when Molson began dumping salaries in the late 90s. Serge wasn't a part of that. His record remains: 2 Cups without a superstar - other than Roy, of course. Both in 1986 and 1993 he won cups when Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux were the leagues best players and on teams that were winning multiple Cups. I think Serge did fine. And remember what he inherited in 1983 when he took over for Irving Grundman, the GM that picked Doug Wickenheiser instead of Denis Savard in the 1980, and then traded future Hall of Famer Rod Languay and Brian Engbloom and Craig Laughlin for Ryan Walter and Rick Green [who would later be on the 1986 team].
I agree with you TC. Serge was not that good at all.
I admit that I do agree with you that he's been their best GM since the days of Sammy.
GO HABS.
I'd like to see bob move some dead weight players like dandy in order to get more draft picks since we only have 5 in this years draft. I also think if bob is not going to resign streit then it would be a good idea to trade his rights before july 1st and get something for him, like nashville did last year with hartnell and timonen.
I would like to see streit resigned but if there is no hope either due to money or the fact that streit would rather play defence then forward then bob should trade his rights. We should also do this with ryder, even if we only get a late draft pick for him, its better than nothing at all.
Excellent post bro, I agree regarding trading dead weight and the UFA's we can't sign for some picks. Dandy has three Cups, and Streit and Ryder will definitely have value on the UFA market.