NHL Draft | The QMJHL cleared, no trades

(Nashville) We weren’t expecting a big harvest for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) early in this 2023 draft, and we weren’t wrong. No hope of the Quebec circuit was indeed selected during the 1^er auction round.

Gabriel Perreault, the son of former player Yanic Perreault, is the only Quebec native to have been claimed during this first round, by the Rangers on 23^e rank. Perreault, however, has lived in Chicago for about ten years and plays for the United States internationally.

This is the first time since 2014 that no Quebecer has been selected for the 1^er round. That year, Dane Nikolaj Ehlers, however, saved the QMJHL from being cleared. The Jets had drafted him at 9^e rank.

This is the first time since 2008 that the Cecchini circuit is absent from the first round. It also happened in 2000.

This low representation of the Quebec circuit was predictable at the NHL evaluation camp in Buffalo three weeks ago. Among the 106 players invited, the QMJHL had only seven representatives, compared to 20 for the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and 21 for the Western Hockey League (WHL). The small number of players was all the more surprising as no Russian participated in the evaluation camp. The pool of hopefuls from the other territories should therefore have been higher.

These development camp invites are based on team requests. Only players who interest enough clubs are invited to Buffalo.

This trough comes at a time when the QMJHL is doing well in the Memorial Cup. It is indeed clubs from the Quebec league that have won the last four editions of the tournament: Quebec (2023), Saint John (2002), Rouyn-Noranda (2019) and Acadie-Bathurst (2018).

No transactions

Decidedly, hockey fans in Nashville were not spoiled like those in Montreal last year. Indeed, only two transactions were concluded on June 28, both before the start of the session.

Moreover, none of these trades involved a choice of 1^er round. The Lightning first traded forward Ross Colton to the Avalanche for a pick of 2^e round, and the Penguins then acquired winger Reilly Smith from the Golden Knights for a pick of 3^e round.

That said, several of the big names expected in the deal market had already been traded in the previous days, whether Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tyler Toffoli or Kevin Hayes. Two choices of 1^er round have changed hands since the Stanley Cup final ended: on the 22^e (transaction of Ivan Provorov) and the 31^e (transaction of Alex Newhook).

According to colleague Frank Seravalli, this is the first time since 2007 that no transaction has been concluded during the first round of the draft.

In 2022, six transactions involving choices of 1^er round had been concluded on the day of this 1^er round. Everyone will obviously remember the three-team transaction initiated by the Canadian, who sent Alexander Romanov to the New York Islanders in exchange for 13^e choice in total, before giving up this 13^e choice to the Blackhawks against Kirby Dach.