Free washer | Reviewing our expectations heading into the rookie tournament

The Canadiens’ rookie tournament always brings a lot of hope. We often see players freshly drafted a few months earlier for the first time and we are curious to see the progress of their elders, those who offer the greatest promise.

It’s a time of the season where we sometimes tend to overestimate the organization’s hopes and the most optimistic sometimes even wonder if there will be enough room within the roster to accommodate so much talent.

The main headliners this year are David Reinbacher, Logan Mailloux, Owen Beck, Sean Farrell, William Trudeau, Emil Heineman and Filip Mesar. How many of them will become impact players in Montreal? If the trend is anything to go by, probably two, three in the best of all possible worlds.

Let’s take it top 10 hopes of the Canadian over the last ten years. We chose lists at random, but representative of the general consensus. We have underlined in bold the names of the players who had an impact with the Canadian or elsewhere, that is to say a first or second line player, a defender of the top 4 or a number one goalkeeper.

In 2014, we believed we had found replacements for Andrei Markov, Alexei Emelin and company in two first-round picks, Nathan Beaulieu and Jarred Tinordi. They have received a lot of media coverage over the years. Beaulieu and Tinordi are still in the NHL a decade later, but in a modest role and elsewhere.

Nikita Scherbak and Michael McCarron made the team’s list of top prospects for one reason: they were first-round picks. However, a prospect drafted after the 25th^e rank has little more chance of breaking through than a second-round pick, for example. Their selection rank explains why they were ahead of Lehkonen, for example, who remained in Europe three years after being drafted by the team, therefore absent from the spotlight.

Mikhail Sergachev, 9^e overall pick in 2016 was the only player drafted beyond 25^e rank between 2013 and 2017. This can partly explain why so few hopes broke through between 2014 and 2017. Marc Bergevin still regrets this exchange today.

We had high hopes for the 2017 vintage. First pick Ryan Poehling shone at the World Junior Championship a few years after the draft, defenseman Josh Brook exploded with 75 points in 59 games in his final year in Moose Jaw, Cayden Primeau dominated in the NCAA and Cale Fleury reached the NHL quickly. It was a mirage. Brook was arguably the organization’s most overrated prospect of the last decade. We must be wary of big productions from young players in their fourth season in the junior ranks.

There is an improvement starting in 2018. This period coincides with an increasing number of higher choices, in a reset period, and a greater number of choices in general.

The Canadian was drafted five times in the top 16 between 2018 and 2023, including three times in the top 5, compared to twice in the previous six vintages. He also acquired three players drafted in the top 16 in recent seasons, Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook.

Without losing our critical spirit, we can foresee the future with more optimism than six or seven years ago, but by keeping in mind these examples of young people who seemed sure at the start of their career to succeed in a great career.

Owen Beck at the center of the first line

The Canadian deployed his training on Friday during morning training in anticipation of the first match of the junior tournament in Buffalo, presented on the rds.ca website from 7 p.m.

We can see the hierarchical status of each person, which will change if necessary depending on performance throughout the competition.

Thus Owen Beck finds himself in the center of the first trio, between Emil Heineman on the left and Joshua Roy on the right. Sean Farrell makes up the second left winger, with Riley Kidney at center and Filip Mesar employed on the right.

Xavier Simoneau, Jan Mysak, Cédric Guindon, Florian Xhekaj, Jared Davidson and the giant John Parker-Jones complete the last two trios.

On defense, 2023 first pick David Reinbacher will have the privilege of playing in the first pair with William Trudeau, a regular with the Laval Rocket last year. Logan Mailloux finds himself in the second pair with Christopher Ortiz, 22, a former Baie-Comeau Drakkar hired this summer to add a little depth to the Laval Rocket. In principle, he should end up with the Trois-Rivières Lions, in the ECHL, where he played the last two seasons. Ortiz appears to be replacing Jayden Struble, who was absent from morning practice but able to return to the club by the end of the day Friday. Stanislav Demin and Miguel Tourigny complete the lineup and goalkeeper Jakub Dobes will be the starting goalkeeper, assisted by Quentin Miller