Former Montreal Canadiens scout Grant McCagg has released Recrutes.ca 2024 Habs Prospect Guide and it's an interesting read.
In the latest installment of Tony Marinaro's The Sick Podcast, the host and guest Grant McCagg discussed a couple of Montreal Canadiens' picks from the last draft in Aatos Koivu and defenseman Owen Protz. While they were the main conversation topic, they also discussed McCagg's latest release; the Recrutes.ca 2024 Habs Prospect Guide.
It's a very interesting read which includes an introductory article cleverly titled "The Hage of Demidov" in which he goes over the top 30 Canadiens prospects in a summary fashion, there's a list of said prospects and an in-depth dive into each of them. It's followed by 12 more prospects which he ranks from 31 to 42 with a small paragraph of information for each. Finally, there's an article about Canadiens' co-director of amateur scouting Nick Bobrov accumulating unicorns for the franchise.
McCagg makes a good use of his medium, hyperlinking Youtube videos of each and every one of the first 30 prospects which is a fantastic way to explain how he gets to the ratings he gives each player. They are rated on eight criteria: skating, skills, playmaking, shot, sense, compete, intangible and size factor and get a score out of 10 for each of them, providing a rating out of 80.
We've been hearing for years now that the Canadiens' prospect cupboard is stacked when it comes to blueliners but rather bare on the attacking front. In this ranking however, there are four defensemen, five forwards and one goaltender in the top 10, a welcome change.
I'll let you discover the rankings for yourself, but it really feels like this rebuild is going the right way. Patience will still be needed however as all those youngsters go through the growing pains that comes with being a professional hockey player, but what's a couple more seasons of patience compared to seeing this once glorious franchise return to its perennial contender status?
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