A former NHL general manager vehemently contends that the Edmonton Oilers should retain Broberg Philip
Over the past few seasons, Kent Hughes and his gang have built up a rather interesting bank of prospects for the future of the Canadiens. With each ranking, Ivan Demidov seems to be flirting with the top, with many other Habs prospects a little further down.
That’s exactly what you’ll find in the ranking of the NHL’s top 100 prospects concocted by the team at Elite Prospects‘ affiliate site, EP Rinkside.
Mitch Brown, David St-Louis and J.D. Burke have compiled a ranking of the top 100 prospects who are eligible to win the Calder Trophy this season or who have yet to play in the NHL.
Unsurprisingly, the very first Canadian prospect on this list is Ivan Demidov, who ranks third overall. That’s exactly the same ranking Scott Wheeler gave him in his top prospects ranking for The Athletic.
In fact, Wheeler’s and EP Rinkside ‘s top 3 are identical, with Matvei Michkov in second place and Macklin Celebrini at the top.
Except that EP Rinkside has much more hope in David Reinbacher than Wheeler. The defenseman is ranked 13th in this ranking, whereas he was 38th in Wheeler’s!
Lane Hutson is another good defensive prospect for the Canadians to keep an eye on. He is ranked 27th. Demidov, Reinbacher and Hutson are the only three Canadiens prospects in the top 50 of this ranking.
Here are the four other Canadiens prospects who earned a place in this ranking:
Joshua Roy (52nd)
Michael Hage (72nd)
Owen Beck (76th)
Logan Mailloux (95th)
That’s all well and good, but the creators of this ranking seem to have forgotten one very important Canadiens prospect: Jacob Fowler.
Fowler had an impressive final season in the NCAA with Boston College and still doesn’t seem to be getting the recognition he needs. He has the potential to become an excellent NHL goalie.
This ranking remains subjective, and some players ranked further down this list are likely to cause a surprise during their NHL careers. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that some of them turn out to be Canadiens players.
