Canadiens Draft Preview: Trade potential lowered by current market dynamics

MONTREAL — In an ideal world, the Montreal Canadiens would use the 16th or 17th overall pick — or both — in the first round of the upcoming NHL Draft to immediately improve their team via trade.

The real world, however, might not present them with that opportunity between now and when they’re called to make their selections Friday.

As of this writing, it appears it won’t.

Multiple sources have confirmed what’s already been widely reported: one team (Pittsburgh) has established itself as a traditional seller and just about every other one wants to buy, using futures as a currency of choice.

The Canadiens are rich in futures. In addition to their first-round picks, they have two in the second, three in the third and five more in this draft in Rounds 4 through 7.

They have another 16 banked over the next two drafts. And they have one of the deepest — and richest — prospect pools in all of hockey to deal from.

General manager Kent Hughes has even already said he’s inclined to spend more of those assets than he should on an established player over doling out a boatload of cash on a long-term deal for an unrestricted free agent.

But unless a couple of teams have some sort of wakeup call over the coming week, Hughes might only be adding more prospects to his overcrowded pool on the weekend.

Over this past weekend, one rival executive told us he’s facing the same reality.

“Nearly every team wants to take a step forward and acquire roster players, but none of them really want to sell ones they have,” he said. “There could end up being a lot of movement come November, when some of these teams realize adding over the summer wasn’t really in their best interest to begin with.

“I’m sure there will be some trades now, some hockey deals,” the executive concluded, “but it’s probably going to be quieter than a lot of people are hoping for.”

If it is for the Canadiens, it’ll be because they’re not intending on forcing the issue.

Do they want to bolster their top six? Absolutely.

Do they want to make the 2026 playoffs to follow up their 2025 appearance? Absolutely.

But the Canadiens will not jam a square peg into a round hole just to achieve those objectives, especially at the risk of interfering with their main objective of building a perennial Stanley Cup contender down the line.

You want an example? Look at Marco Rossi.

The 23-year-old is at a contract impasse with the Minnesota Wild. He’s coming off a 24-goal, 60-point season, making him a legitimate second-line centre, which in turn would make him a player that could certainly fill a hole on the Canadiens and help them make the playoffs year over year.

But the Canadiens aren’t aiming to just make the playoffs year over year, so don’t expect them to spend draft picks, prospects, and the money the five-foot-nine, 182-pound Rossi — who’s looking for on a long-term contract — when they already have five-foot-eight Cole Caufield and 192-pound Ivan Demidov locked into their top six. It wouldn’t jive with their long-term plan, and despite swelling expectations and excitement in the fanbase that came with their first playoff appearance in four years, they have no intention of diverging from their long-term plan.

“I think we can have that restraint,” said Canadiens executive vice-president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton when the season wrapped. “I do think we’re in a situation where we have talent coming, we have a nucleus that’s forming. I do think that we don’t necessarily just go chase something just to chase it.”

He still intimated they’d be very aggressively chasing pieces that would bolster and balance their group, and league sources have confirmed he and Hughes have been doing exactly that over the past number of weeks.

It should come as no surprise they’re willing to move at least one of their first-round picks in a package for the right player.

But the value of both their picks on the market is, at this point, diminished by a host of teams around them dangling their own first-round picks.

Buffalo picks ninth, Anaheim 10th, the Rangers 12th, Detroit 13th, Columbus 14th, and Vancouver 15th, and all those teams appear willing to forfeit those picks for roster players that can potentially help them move up the standings.

If any of them are successful, it’ll only increase the chances of the Canadiens using 16th and 17th overall to draft players.

Draft picks (from PuckPedia.com):

Potential Round 1 options

Pinning these down feels particularly challenging in a year in which there’s no real consensus on prospect rankings from eighth overall to 20th.

Speaking with a director of amateur scouting for a Western Conference team last week, he felt the variance in opinion within his own team’s meetings was as wide as he’s seen it in years.

“That’s still a good thing, because you want the debate to be as exhaustive as possible before forming your final list. But what I mean is that the group at the top of this draft is strong and the rest of the first round doesn’t appear as though it’ll yield as many sure bets as in years past,” he said. “Not to say there won’t be great players to come out of the rest of the first round; it just feels like there are fewer guarantees, which leads to less consensus on the potential of a given player.”

The scouting director wasn’t going to tell us how he feels about any of them, and all we’ve got to go on regarding the Canadiens’ preferences is rumour, rather than fact.

So, with that in mind, here are four players we think — and this is purely our opinion — they may consider at 16th or 17 thoverall:

Carter Bear: A six-foot winger with excellent hockey sense and a penchant for getting his nose dirty in the gritty Western Hockey League. Bear’s heady, steady play — he had 40 goals and 82 points in 56 games with the Everett Silvertips — probably makes him unavailable by the time the Canadiens are on the clock. But if a late-season Achilles injury that required surgery puts any type of scare into the teams picking ahead of them, perhaps he slips into their hands.

Lynden Lakovic: The six-foot-four, silky and speedy left winger scored 27 goals and 58 points in 47 games with the Western Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors this season. Only collecting four penalty minutes, however, was just one indication he doesn’t fit the bill of a power forward. If the Canadiens feel he can develop a bit more edge and grit, the skill he possesses could see him land in Montreal.

Justin Carbonneau: The six-foot-one right winger scored 46 goals and 89 points in 62 games for the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada to finish second in QMJHL scoring this season. He’s skilled, he plays a heavy game, and the possibility the Levis, Que., native gets drafted by Montreal feels real.

Jack Nesbitt: He’s a six-foot-four centre who plays like he’s six-foot-four. There are concerns Nesbitt’s foot speed will keep him from toping out as a top-six forward in the NHL, but he had 25 goals and a 64 points in 65 games with the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires this season and appears like he can do more with a bit more opportunity.

Last year’s top pick

If the Canadiens were already pinching themselves when they landed Demidov fifth overall in 2024, he really made their dreams come true by unexpectedly joining them at the end of his rookie-of-the-year performance in the KHL.

And the 19-year-old’s first experiences in the NHL — over the final two regular-season games and five playoff games against the Washington Capitals — only reinforced their belief they got a player who will be at the foundation of their success over the coming years.

First, Demidov had 19 goals and 49 points in his 65 games with SKA Saint Petersburg. He produced the most offensively prolific season a player his age has ever has in the KHL before scoring three goals and five points in six playoff games and departing for Montreal.

From there, Demidov turned his third NHL touch into his first NHL assist.

Then he turned his first shot in the league into his first goal.

And while Demidov may have only registered two points in the playoffs, he displayed many signs he had arrived as a gamebreaker.

The feeling Demidov will show many more of them over his official rookie season in 2025-26 has only been bolstered since.

He’s spent the entirety of the off-season in Montreal, where he’s been training five days a week in the gym and twice a day on the ice — in the mornings with a group of Canadiens players in town, and largely on his own in the afternoons.

His appetite to improve his skating, and every other aspect of his game, appears insatiable, which is part of what made the Canadiens so excited about his availability at fifth overall in the first place.

One bold prediction

The Canadiens will draft Will Horcoff at some point over the weekend. Not necessarily 16th or 17th overall, but perhaps later in the first round, or earlier than they’re slated to pick in the second.

The son of former NHLer Shawn Horcoff, who ground his way through over 1000 games (mostly played with the Edmonton Oilers) before eventually becoming the current assistant general manager of the Red Wings, blew the competition away at the NHL combine in Buffalo earlier this month.

He’s a six-foot-four forward whose competitiveness is garnering much more attention than his offence. It was limited in his split season between the United States National Development Program and Michigan University, hence some publicly available lists projecting he’ll go 24th overall and some projecting he’ll fall all the way to 67th.

Based on conversations we’ve had, Horcoff’s size, strength, battle level and pedigree will likely see him picked higher than most public lists are projecting.

More from Sportsnet

NHL Rumour Roundup: Canadiens looking for forward to pair with Demidov

Assessing the off-season centre market for Maple Leafs, Canadiens, Jets