How the Canadiens' amateur scouting approach is adjusting coming out of a rebuild

New York Times

9 hours ago

MONTREAL – When the Montreal Canadiens drafted Ivan Demidov and Michael Hage in the first round of last year's draft, co-director of amateur scouting Nick Bobrov talked about the puzzle of the prospect pool this administration has been building for three years beginning to take shape, how it had varied elements and appeared well suited to feed the big club over the coming years.
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That was what allowed Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes to pull the trigger on Friday's trade for Noah Dobson: knowing the prospect pool is not perfect but deep and stable. The prospects they could have drafted with their two first-round picks, coming off a playoff berth and with a promising young core forming in Montreal, were less important than adding to that core in the form of Dobson.
Up until now, the Canadiens had been attempting to draft that core and build that diversity in their pool. But the approach appears different now, especially after watching how they attacked Day 2 of the draft.
Much like Hughes said the Canadiens have transitioned from rebuild to team-building mode, the amateur scouting staff has also transitioned.
'That would be the case because you don't want to create redundancy in certain elements, certain types of profiles and players,' Bobrov said Saturday after the completion of the draft. 'You're always missing a few ingredients here and there, so you look for those ingredients, but being mindful that the player still has to be the best player available when all things are equal. But if one ingredient tips the scale a little bit, that's the difference-maker in the selection.
'If you have enough of one thing, you're looking at something different. I can give you one example: we wanted more depth on the right side on defence. So, just organizational depth. You look around the NHL depth charts, and they're lacking that depth. So we wanted to increase that depth, to give you an example.'
That is telling because the Canadiens just acquired Dobson, a right-shot defenceman. They have Logan Mailloux and David Reinbacher in Laval, two right-shot defencemen on the verge of graduating from the AHL. Bogdan Konyushkov, a 2023 fourth-round pick playing in the KHL who will be at development camp next week, also shoots from the right side.
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But when NHL depth charts are lacking right-shot defencemen, you already have some and you start hoarding them regardless – the Canadiens took three Saturday – then there is something deeper happening. It is drafting players to shore up the prospect pool, sure. But it is also drafting players to serve as trade capital down the road. The more of these players the Canadiens can draft and develop, the more trades like the one that happened Friday are facilitated.
'We did pick quite a few (defencemen), and they happen to be right-shot (defencemen), which is a rarity in the market, everybody knows that,' Bobrov said. 'When they fall in your lap, you have to strike.'
After every draft, every single team says the players they drafted were far higher on their lists and they were stunned they were available. This year was no different. I mean, imagine the luck for the Columbus Blue Jackets!
#CBJ GM Don Waddell just said – and later confirmed – that the first three players they selected were among the top 14 in their overall list.
No. 14 Jackson SmithNo. 20 Pyotr AndreyanovNo. 76 Malte Vass
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) June 28, 2025
The Canadiens were just as enthusiastic about being able to draft Russian winger Alexander Zharovsky in the second round, a pick that required the Canadiens to give up picks No. 41 and 49 to move up to 34 and take him with the second pick of the second round.
'On paper, he's a second-round pick,' director of player personnel and amateur scouting Martin Lapointe said. 'But on our list, he was a first-rounder, and we had him where we were supposed to pick. And the mandate was to draft a top-six talent. It was important to us, so we had no problem paying the price.'
I mean, imagine the luck for the Montreal Canadiens!
Of course, a grain of salt is required, but the Canadiens were genuinely excited to see him still on the board at the end of Day 1 and moved swiftly to get him early on Day 2. Zharovsky was a late riser who was not even listed as a prospect by NHL Central Scouting on its preliminary players to watch list last October.
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'He improved all year,' Bobrov said. 'It's no secret he wasn't rated at the beginning of the year. He came from a lower level and started emerging maybe a quarter of the way through the season, and then halfway through the season it was even better, and towards the end he was thrown into his first KHL games in the playoffs against pretty tough teams in Spartak and Yaroslavl. So the body of work and the trajectory of his improvement was very impressive.'
Bobrov had a chance to meet with Zharovsky in Russia when he was part of the delegation that went to visit with Ivan Demidov in St. Petersburg in December, and he, Lapointe and special advisor to hockey operations Vincent Lecavalier met with him again recently at agent Dan Milstein's Gold Star camp in Fort Lauderdale.
The fact Zharovsky was literally off the radar at the beginning of the season was an advantage, but over the past few months, the rest of the league had caught on to his ascension. Which is why the Canadiens felt it was necessary to spend those two picks to get him, a steep price.
Two minutes of Alexander Zharovsky's offensive highlights from the past season.
High-end puckhandling, creative problem-solving under pressure, sniping pucks past goalies from mid-range, manipulative playmaking. #2025NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/Uv0pHsLn5u
— Lassi Alanen (@lassialanen) June 10, 2025
Last season, Zharovsky spent the bulk of the year playing in the NMHL, a very low-level junior league in Russia.
'The kid came from a very small town and the path is not linear,' Bobrov explained. 'He was stuck in that environment for a couple of years until he got sold to Ufa. These kids in Russia, if you're lucky you go straight into SKA or whatever. If you're unlucky, you end up in the NMHL and you try to climb your way back out.
'At the end of the season he played against (Alexander) Radulov in the KHL playoffs. That was very impactful.'
Zharovsky, Milstein said, should be playing full-time in the KHL next season and is under contract with Ufa for two more years, so the Canadiens have lots of time to monitor his development.
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It also helped that Zharovsky has an established relationship with Demidov, having played with him in their youth.
'We felt after the Noah Dobson trade, finding forwards, a forward or several forwards who have top-six talent would add to our depth organizationally,' Bobrov said. 'We wanted to add a lot of compete, a lot of grit to our depth in the prospect pool. But we also wanted a shot at two or three kids who can play with the top players in the world, and I think you guys have discovered one of our current players has grown up playing with Alexander Zharovsky for quite some time. So we've done our homework and we felt pretty comfortable to do what we've done.'
Another player that would apply to is L.J. Mooney, a fourth-round pick who might have gone in the first round if he were four inches taller — he's 5-foot-8. But Mooney is a dynamic offensive player, he competes like crazy, is physical for a player his size and plays with a massive chip on his shoulder because of all the doubt he faces over his size, something that was (and is) also true of Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson and Sean Farrell.
'In the fourth round, you're looking for a home run,' Lapointe said. 'He's a talent. His size, we weren't worried about that.'
Hoarding rare player types, seeking out market inefficiencies — these are draft traits winning teams are usually stuck clinging to because they don't have strong enough draft capital to get the sure bets.
The Canadiens are not a winning team, but they were in that position this year because of the Dobson trade and still came out of the draft pretty well stacked, all things considered.
And perhaps it's for the best. Because if all goes well with the big club, this scouting staff might find itself in this position at the draft more often.
(Photo of the Canadiens' table at the 2024 draft: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)