Much has been made about the picks accumulated by the Montreal Canadiens for the 2023 entry draft – they have 12 in total. But 3 of those picks are in the 7th round. If you go back through the 20 drafts between 1999 and 2018 you can see what the success rate of those 7th round picks have been. In fact, using a minimum of 200 games played as a cutoff, only 49 players out of the approximately 600 drafted in the 7th round have seen significant NHL playing time. That represents about an 8% success rate. Looking at it another way, a team has chance of drafting a player in the 7th round who will eventually be successful about once in every 12 years. And an even smaller percentage of these selections become impact players. Using that as a measuring stick and with 3 picks in the 7th round there is about a 24% chance that one of the Canadiens’ picks from that round will eventually play more than a handful of games in the NHL. The cutoff at the 2018 draft was used because many players drafted after that are young and still have a shot a making the NHL. Good advice might be to temper our expectations regarding late round picks. – Trask

Since the 2020 draft the Montreal Canadiens have drafted 37 players with 16 of these players already having participated in men’s professional leagues. High draft picks, particularly if they have played in North America, garner most of the attention even if they are still playing junior or college hockey and it becomes easy to overlook those who toil in the relative obscurity of European leagues or the minor pros. While there is a wide variance in talent between a top pro league like the NHL and lesser leagues like the SHL, Liiga or the VHL it’s also worth keeping in mind that these are men’s professional leagues with mature players. No one is competing against 17 year old players. The leading goal scorer in pro games among this group of 12 players is Oliver Kapanen with 31 goals in 137 games. Alexander Gordin is second with 30 goals in 119 games, albeit in a lesser league. A pleasant surprise has been Filip Eriksson who has 12 goals in 26 games in the Allsvenskan, after going scoreless in 21 SHL games. And let’s not forget Jared Davidson who has netted 11 goals in 38 games while battling injuries. Among defenseman, Dimitri Kostenko has 18 goals in 182 pro games, most of them in the VHL, while Logan Mailloux has 14 goals in only 62 games with Laval. As far as efficiency goes, it his hard to beat Joshua Roy who has already scored 17 pro goals in his first 63 games – 4 of those goals coming in 23 NHL games. Adam Engstrom has also demonstrated some offensive prowess with 13 goals in 108 SHL games. – Trask

Habs fans were perhaps prematurely overjoyed with the scoring success that Rafael Harvey-Pinard enjoyed after notching 14 goals in his first 38 NHL games. Simple calculations projected that number to be 33 goals over the course of a full season. But projecting performance in the NHL is not that simple. RHP’s stats were influenced by two factors. He had an unsustainable shooting percentage of 23.4% and he scored 4 power play goals. The median shooting percentage among forwards is closer to 12% and scoring at that rate would immediately halve his production. If you also accept the fact the RHP is likely to see very little PP time going forward, you can subtract those goals at the man advantage. Suddenly a production level of something closer to 12 or 13 goals in a full season seems more realistic. Would that earn him a spot on the Habs? Probably, because he brings a lot of hustle and the ability to kill penalties to the team. But he will face competition and Habs fans should dismiss the notion that he will compete for a spot in the top 6 and maybe even the top 9. His performance during the remainder of the season will help determine his fate.

Each NHL team is limited to 50 players on NHL contracts. The Montreal Canadiens are currently sitting at 45 contracts and while some of these contracts will expire on July 1st, creating more available spots, the Canadiens have to offer contracts to a couple of players like Cedric Guindon and Jared Davidson before that time or lose their rights. They may also want of offer contracts to a couple of more like Lane Hutson and Luke Tuch before July 1st but they are not compelled to do so. If all four of those players were signed, it would leave only one contract spot to sign an amateur free agent out of the NCAA or a European free agent before June 1st. There is always the possibility of a player trade before June 1st to open up another spot but those kinds of trades are rare. That situation may cause the Canadiens to hesitate offering Guindon a contract and they also have the option of trying to sign Hutson or Tuch to amateur tryout contracts with Laval after their college season ends without foregoing an NHL contract spot. The situation is complex and worth watching, particularly because Gorton has mentioned he is exploring NCAA free agent opportunities. – Trask

The Montreal Canadiens announced tonight that Joshua Roy will be out for a period of four to six weeks. The best-case scenario is that he’s back for Laval’s final two regular season games if the club still needs wins. More likely not available until the second round if the Rocket advance. -McCagg