Reconstruction of the habs: the little mistakes of 2022…

At the time, we applauded the acquisition of a promising young right-handed defenseman in Justin Barron. And, by the same token, the Lehkonen deal also helped maximize our chances of drafting at^{No. 1} in 2022. That, too, was part of the plan.

Unfortunately, Barron didn’t develop as planned

Fortunately, the mistake was corrected with the acquisition of Carrier.

But we have to admit that we didn’t recognize Lehkonen’s full value, nor did we bet on the right horse when we traded him.

Sakic’s reading of the subtleties of Lehkonen’s game beat that of Barron’s potential by the Canadiens’ thinkers.

In the minutes following the selection of winger Slafkovsky in place of centers Wright and Cooley, HuGo wanted to make another big splash in the middle of the Bell Centre with the trade of Romanov and the acquisition of Kirby Dach, a young pivot of 6’3 and over 200 lbs

Romanov was off to a great start with the Canadiens and was probably already the team’s best defensive defenseman at the time of the trade in the 2022 draft.

No matter. In theory, trading Romanov, the ^38th player drafted in 2018, for the ^13th and ^66th picks of 2022 and using that ^13th pick to acquire Dach, the^3rd overall pick of 2019, was a very nice gamble.

The left side of the defense was pretty well taken care of with Guhle, Struble and Xhekaj, all sturdy fellows, at least one of whom would become as good as Romanov. We could sacrifice the Russian “bowling ball” to get our hands on a potential high-quality second center, or even a first, who knows..

Lamoriello and the Islanders knew that agent Dan Milstein was right on target in 2018 when he said his client deserved to be a top-10 pick. We clearly understood Romanov’s value as a sure thing, no matter what happened to that famous ^13th pick the Habs gave up to the Hawks a few minutes later..

Unfortunately, Dach has played just 117 games in three seasons in Montreal, and injuries have undermined his development

To this day, at nearly 25 years of age, we still don’t know if he’ll be able to approach the player HuGo had in mind for the summer of 2022 and who we’ve seen so little of since his arrival in town..

Meanwhile, Guhle plays barely more games than Dach, Struble and Xhekaj alternate in the role of 6th defenseman, while Romanov has cumulated 221 games in New York in addition to showing a plus-41 differential…

Meanwhile, Frank Nazar, ultimately selected ^13th overall by the Hawks, is well on his way to becoming a star center in the NHL. Watch him against the Habs: he’s quite a hockey player!

In short, we’re not quite there yet, but does anyone still have a great deal of confidence that Dach will have a brilliant career in Montreal?

For the moment, Kapanen, a Timmins-Bergevin pick, is surpassing expectations, and his subtle qualities – speed, shooting, intelligence and vision – were undoubtedly underestimated. du If Dach doesn’t get back on track, could he correct this dent in HuGo’s rebuilding plan? Let’s suspend judgment for now…

The more time passes, the more it seems that our initial hypothesis holds true, i.e. that the Habs drafted Mesar largely to please their friend Slafkovsky, at the expense of Jiri Kulich.

Of course, at ^26th, the chances of being wrong are greater than in the top-15.

Of course, the Habs seem to have bounced back nicely with the unthinkable selection of Lane Hutson at ^62nd and, to a lesser extent, Beck at ^33rd, Rohrer at ^75th and Engstrom at 92nd^.

That makes up for it…

But Kulich (^28th ), the man with the shot of fire, already CLEARLY better at the time, was on the same “hunting ground” as Mesar in Europe.

And we think he has superior talent to Kapanen and Dach..

Ultimately, replacing Lehkonen with Barron, now Carrier, an effective third-pair right-handed defenseman of roughly the same age as Lehkonen, really isn’t such a big “mistake”. But you can’t say it represents long-term progress, which is the goal of any rebuild..

Then, in retrospect, and somewhat ironically, it was Kirby Dach’s multiple injuries that benefited the Habs’ rebuild. If Dach hadn’t been injured all season in 2023-2024, HuGo probably wouldn’t have had the chance to draft Ivan Demidov at No^{. 5}!

Finally, the “final-final” verdict is still out on Mesar’s selection. But despite encouraging signs at the last camp, the indicators are still in the red for the Slovak. Which is definitely not the case for the left-handed Kulich, 6’1, 193 lbs, promoted to the center of the second line in Buffalo! Well, well, well!

But, all in all, in the overall picture, these “little mistakes” of 2022 are not dramatic and, paradoxically, some of them may even have been profitable for drafting early in 2023 and 2024…

That said, Kapanen or not, no one would say no to Nazar or Kulich today at the center of the second line!

We’re hearing this one more and more often! In my opinion, Cooley may be becoming an NHL offensive star and Wright may be showing encouraging signs, but I still don’t buy the idea that Slafkovsky could have been a “mistake” at first. It would take a catastrophe to change my mind.

In addition to getting off to a good start in his career and still developing like most big players at his age, is his usefulness among Montreal’s multiple small forwards really up for discussion? Imagine the average size of the Habs’ two first trios in his absence! At 21, very few NHL players are as good as he is at making life easier for his partners and winning 1-on-1 battles in the back of the net. The proof:

Without him, the Caufield-Suzuki duo really isn’t as effective. Together, the guys form the 4th best 5-on-5 line in the NHL! All that’s left is for Slafkovsky to put a few more pucks in the net. The rest of his game is really solid and useful to the team. In my opinion, he’s still the best choice the Habs could have made at No. 1.Next!

That’s the big taboo right now…