MONTREAL—The suspense was real for Montreal Canadiens fans, but it evaporated in three minutes flat.
That’s how long it took for the NHL’s deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, to announce that the six teams with the lowest chances of picking in the Top 3 at this year’s entry draft had kept their places.
Then Daly paused for effect before flipping over the seventh placard, revealing that the Montreal Canadiens, who were statistically the league’s worst team from Dec. 1 through the end of the 2015-16 regular season, would retain the ninth overall pick.
The camera panned to Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin, who stared into the lens with a blank expression. It was a different story for Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who sheepishly smiled 16 minutes later, when it was announced his team had made good on a 20 per cent chance to win the draft lottery.
Perhaps Bergevin was contemplating what comes next for the Canadiens after a tumultuous season forced him to be in Toronto on Saturday.
“I like you George,” Bergevin told Hockey Night in Canada host George Stroumboulopoulos. “But I don’t want to be here next year.”
There’s a very slim chance the ninth pick at this year’s draft can help the Canadiens grant Bergevin’s wish, but the opportunity to select from the second-highest position he’s been in since taking over as general manager is still an exciting one.
Jakob Chychrun, a 6-foot-2, left-shooting defenceman for the OHL’s Sarnia Sting, could be available at nine. He’s the top-rated blueliner at this year’s draft, maintaining that hype since the Hockey News labelled him so back in September.
Then there’s speedy two-way centre from the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads, Mike McLeod, whose offensive production and hard-to-play-against style draw comparisons to Anaheim’s Ryan Kesler.
OHL defencemen Mikhail Sergachev and Olli Juolevi will be appealing choices for Bergevin and the Canadiens to consider. And Logan Brown, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound centre for the Windsor Spitfires, could fill a need the team has had since the early 1990s.
But each of these players will likely need two or three years of seasoning. And for a general manager who needs to win now but insists the proper way to build a team is through the draft, contingency plans must be implemented.
That’s why speculation on whom the Canadiens might deal to move up into the Top 5 of the draft, or whom they might move to acquire a Top 6 forward, will run rampant between now and the draft.
If you’re star defenceman P.K. Subban, you might want to turn your phone off for the next seven weeks.
Subban, who signed an eight-year, $72 million contract with Montreal following arbitration proceedings in August of 2014, has a no-trade clause that will kick in on July 1. And his attempts to quell suggestions there’s a rift between he and his teammates haven’t suppressed any of the rumours the Canadiens might consider dealing him before that day.
“Wayne Gretzky was traded,” said Bergevin at the Canadiens’ season-ending press conference. “Am I trying to move P.K. Subban? Am I trying to move [goaltender] Carey Price? No. Am I trying to move [captain] Max Pacioretty? No. Is my job to make the team better? Yes. To move any of these guys, including P.K., it would have to be something very special.”
The Edmonton Oilers, who will select fourth overall in Buffalo, might present an opportunity. General manager Peter Chiarelli is eager to get help on the blue line and is admittedly willing to part with core players, former first overall selections Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins among them, to do it.
The Colorado Avalanche, who hold the 10th pick in this year’s draft, is another team interested in shaking things up. Could dynamic forward Matt Duchene, who was rumoured available earlier in the year, be dangled for Subban?
On Saturday, the possibility of Auston Matthews pulling on a Canadiens sweater dissolved in a matter of minutes, but other compelling possibilities—like the ones listed above—will cue a longer-lasting suspense for the team’s fans.
