A look back at the 2023 NHL Draft

MONTREAL - It was anyone’s guess.

For the second year in a row, the Canadiens held a top pick heading into the 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville, TN.

And for a second year in a row, they played their cards close to their chest.

No one knew who the Habs would select or if Montreal’s general manager, Kent Hughes, would trade the pick away to move up or down —and that's exactly what Hughes wanted.

“There’s definitely more than one name that comes to mind,” he said, coyly, during a media availability the day before the Draft. “We think that at fifth, we’ll get a good hockey player if we keep our pick. If we move up, we’re even more certain. If we move down, it depends.”

The West Island native certainly has a way of keeping everyone on their toes.

Pundits and fans fed into the speculation for months leading up to the annual event until the Habs brass put an end to the guessing game when they made Austrian blue-liner David Reinbacher the fifth-overall pick at Bridgestone Arena on June 28.

“We felt that David, given what he has done this year, and last year in fact, his growth, his potential, are very, very intriguing and extremely difficult to obtain,” said Canadiens’ co-director of amateur scouting Nick Bobrov following the conclusion of the draft on June 29. “We see that at every draft, teams trying to trade up and get that guy.”

The stats don’t lie: In 2022-23, the right-handed defenseman amassed 22 points in 46 games for Kloten, the most by a teenager in Switzerland’s top tier professional league. He ranked second among defensemen in the National League with an average ice time of 18:56. That number represented a more than six-minute increase on his average ice time from the previous campaign. [statistics courtesy of Adam Kimelman, NHL.com]

On the international stage, the 18-year-old has already checked two participations at the U20 World Junior Championship and an appearance at the 2023 World Championship off his growing list of accomplishments.  

At the Draft, he made Austrian hockey history by tying former Hab Thomas Vanek as the highest-drafted player from that country. 

Not to mention that the 6-foot-2, 194-pound rearguard signed his first NHL contract with the Canadiens on July 5, a week after being drafted by the most storied franchise in hockey. 

Seems like moving away from home at age 14 is paying off. 

"He’s a charismatic young man who doesn’t take anything for granted,” said Hughes. “We’ve often heard him say, ‘I need to keep putting in the work and prove myself.’ […] He’s nice off the ice, but he is very competitive on the ice, very physical. He works hard to not give anything to his opponents, and we see his intelligence [on the ice]. When we talk about hockey sense, most people think of Wayne Gretzky. But for us, hockey sense is as important defensively as it is offensively, and David has a high defensive IQ and is very efficient with the puck.” 

In Reinbacher, the Canadiens not only chose a player with tremendous potential and someone who has shown that he can rise to any occasion, but also a young man who fits into the culture the team has been building since Hughes and executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton took the reins nearly two years ago.

Culture lies at the core of the dynamic duo’s philosophy, so it’s not surprising that it was a key aspect to the team’s Draft strategy.

“We tried to diversify where we went with each pick,” said Bobrov. “Some players that bring a certain style, a certain brand, are hard to get to. So, we felt we accomplished the goal of diversifying the type of player that we go after. One consistent theme was: are they adding to the culture that management and all of us are trying to build here? We feel we accomplished that part.”

Throughout the season, Canadiens scouts go from rink to rink to evaluate players and build a Draft grid that ranks eligible prospects based on select criteria. Fans got a glimpse of that work in the team’s Draft documentary that provides an inside look at mic’d up interviews at the NHL Combine and scouting meetings days before the Draft.

“It’s been fiery and active,” said Bobrov of the discussions between the scouts leading up to the big day. “It’s a good group. There’s a lot of debate. Sometimes it’s extremely passionate and that’s good to see, and management really likes having everyone on board and involved and having a voice, so people aren’t shy to offer their opinion which is great, and that’s how we get to the final product.”

That final product led the Canadiens to draft nine prospects: Including Reinbacher, the squad added three defensemen (Bogdan Konyushkov, Luke Mittelstadt), three forwards (Florian Xhekaj, Sam Harris, Filip Eriksson), and three goaltenders (Jacob Fowler, Quentin Miller, Yevgeni Volokhin) to the organizational depth chart.

While it remains to be seen how many members of the Canadiens’ Class of 2023 will become bonafide NHLers down the road, ultimately, the team’s scouting staff did their due diligence in selecting the best prospects they believe could leave their mark with the organization.

“We’re here to pick players for the NHL, not any other league,” said Bobrov. “So, we approach every pick the same way: we’re trying to get an NHL player who will contribute to the Montreal Canadiens, whether it’s at five or the last pick in the seventh round because sometimes, they too become Hall of Famers.”

Article written by Safia Ahmad