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Tomorrow night, the NHL entry draft will at long last gets underway and both the Canadiens head scout, Trevor Timmins, and the general manager, Marc Bergevin, answered the press’ questions. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get any scoop or anything spectacular from the interviews, but nevertheless, here’s what I took away from it.
Timmins: While the pandemic has certainly changed things, Timmins is confident that they were about to do most of the scouting needed in person before the hockey world was put on hold. The downside of it all is that they couldn’t hold a combine this year but they definitely put the extra time to good use, they held over 200 interviews with players and really dove into the prospects’ personality. While any player who will make the NHL needs a base level of talent, for Timmins, character is right up there with hockey sense and skating. Why? Because they want players who will be ready to work and suffer to get better all through their career, much like Brendan Gallagher did and is still doing, working hard every off season to improve.
Even though they’ve put in plenty of work in readiness of the draft, if Bergevin can get the opportunity to improve the team by trading the pick, he has his full backing. Obviously, everyone wants what’s best for the Canadiens and if that means moving the pick, he’s fine with that. Even though the draft will take place virtually, he doesn’t except that to make much of a difference, they’ll all be in a virtual meeting and the trades, if there are any will be made on the phone as they always were.
The scout mentions that it’s hard to project what 18 years-old will be like once they reach 22 or 23 years old and the way things changed over the years didn’t make it any easier. These days, the prospects have got all sort of choices to make for their development, they can go through different routes and yes, the Habs try to steer them in the right direction but ultimately, the choice is up to them. Furthermore, nowadays, young guys have also got more choices of what to do with their free time; social media, video games and the likes. Back in the day, for kids it was all about sports all the time, you’d get home and your parents would kick you out and tell you to play, that would help the development and help create leaders as well, today, it doesn’t work that way anymore.
Timmins is confident that if they do pick, they’ll be able to pick a good player but like every year, he hopes to get some “helps… from other teams (when they draft players that were lower on your list and push the players that interest you down the order). He mentioned that he does see some depth in the 2nd round but they will need a bit of help to get their targets. Interestingly, when asked if there were guys in his former picks that he was surprised to see still available when it was his turn to speak and that turned out good, he mentioned both P.K. Subban, who they thought would be drafted in the 1st round, and Max Pacioretty. This year, they delved more into the prospects’ personality, they sent them personality questionnaires and then Dr. David Scott prepared specific questions as follow-ups. The good thing about this year is that they were able to dig deeper about more prospects that they wouldn’t have gotten to in the normal time frame.
Marc Bergevin: To be honest, he didn’t say anything that was ground breaking but he did tell Pat Hickey that he had never gone on record to say that he wasn’t interested in Patrick Laine but that he wasn’t allowed to talk about another team’s player. Interestingly, he also said that a plan must be flexible, he hadn’t necessarily decided that he would go all in for immediate help before, it always depends how your prospects are developing, and you react to that.
He states that he is aware that to succeed, you need not only players to get you to the playoffs but also through the playoffs. You need talent but you need size and toughness as well. Right now, he likes his team, he’s happy with his goaltenders and the defense but they still need depth up front as they do not have enough players right now.
Even if he did go on record saying that he was willing to move his first round pick, right now, things are very quiet. As for Caufield, he was happy with his decision to go back to Wisconsin but that was providing he could play. Now, the sooner he can play wherever it is, the better.
There you have it, seems nothing is imminent but who knows what could happen before tomorrow night or even during it. Tomorrow should be an interesting day…