Habs Prospects gather next week for Development Camp

The Montreal Canadiens will hold their annual development camp from July 6 to 12.

Forty prospects will ascend on the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard made up of 25 forwards, 10 defensemen and five goalies.

Twenty-four of the prospects invited were selected by the Canadiens in the NHL Entry Draft, including the team’s 2009 first-round pick Louis Leblanc.

Twenty-four participants are returning from last year’s camp.

Max Pacioretty at the 2008 Development Camp 

Three invitees (Max Pacioretty, Ben Maxwell and Yannick Weber) all saw time with the Canadiens in the 2008-09 season.

The 40 Prospects attending the ‘09 development camp (click for a larger image) – habsinsideout.com

The event is open to the public with the first of the daily on-ice sessions starting Monday at 1:30pm.

The participants will also have daily off-ice conditioning sessions.

A detailed schedule of events will be posted at the complex.

An inter-squad game wraps up the event on Saturday.

Carey Price, Guillaume Latendresse, Kyle Chipchura, Matt D’Agostini, Sergei Kostitsyn and Ryan O’Byrne are some of the 2008-09 Canadiens who have taken part in past camps over the years.

The 2009 Entry Draft is upon us!

The NHL’s 2009 Entry Draft is a mere 2 1/2 hours away kids.

Rumors continue to be about, along with who the Islanders pick first.

First off: a big shout out to fellow blogger Robert L at Habs Eyes on The Prize who has media access, along with other SB Nation bloggers to this year’s draft.

Canadiens Picks: #18 in the 1st round. No second round pick due to last year's Tanguay deal. Two in the 3rd round (#65 from Atlanta, and #79). One pick in each of the following rounds.

Kessel/Kaberle: The Bruins are reportedly offering their pick and Kessel for the Leafs blueliner. It would give Boston a solid trio on the point with Chara and Wideman.

Vancouver Canucks: Negotiating with Roberto Luongo on a contract extension according to TSN. Could fall on what happens to the Sedins though.

Scott Niedermeyer: Still undecided on next year, although Team Canada reportedly wants him for the 2010 games. The B.C. native, and brother Rob, are both UFA and could wind up with the Canucks. Again it could fall on if the Sedins re-sign.

Free tickets no more: TSN’s Darren Dreger reporting tickets given for free in a lottery now going for $100 a pop!

First pick: All likelihood the Islanders take Tavares….If not, the new surge of season ticket holders from winning the Draft Lottery will be banging on the doors of the Nassau Coliseum demanding their deposits back!

Salary Cap: Reported to be $56.8 Million. Just $100 up from last season.

5:00 p.m. I suspect right now that Commissioner Bettman is getting his rouge applied.

5:20 pm: TSN's Bob McKenzie would not be surprised that Tomas Kaberle will be a Briuin by night's end. The pick offered by Boston would not be this year's first round pick

5:48 pm: Apparently the Kaberle deal with Bruins is no more due to miscommunication in the draft pick part of the deal. Remind me to offer an invite to Bob McKenzie to my next poker game!

Team 990 panel is expecting Gary Bettman to be greeted by a chorus of boos. I'm sure the NHL has instructed TSN/RDS to lower the house mics when he comes on stage.

6:00 pm: OTR on TSN. Michael Landsberg's makeup/work....right up there with the late Michael Jackson

Claude Lemieux: Now a U.S. citizen

Niedermayer: Will return for one more season. If the Ducks keep him, Pronger will likely be traded.

Dany Heatly: If not traded by July 1, the Sens have to pay him $4 million in bonuses

6:20 pm: Team 990's source says LeCavalier will NOT be moved tonight and that Bauwmeester's rights are being moved.

6:25 pm: Tampa GM Lawton on OTR... Just me or does he remind anyone of a shady used car salesman? But he states nothing is happening on the LeCavalier trade front....

6:35 pm: Over/Under on how many times we hear TSN's Pierre McGuire say "Let the rebuild begin..." during the draft.... 18 times

Flyers may be in the running for Chris Pronger.

6:45 pm: Islanders owner Charles Wang a the Islanders table snapping pictures. Maybe figuring he may not be doing thi next year?

6:50 pm: Sen's GM Bryan Murray tells TSN's Darren Dredger that "it's dead", meaning any potential Heatly deals

6:55 pm: P.J. Stock on Team 990 says that if Montreal does not draft a center tonight, there will be some serious talk on the radio on Monday.

7:00 pm: Flyers deal for Pronger apparently just a formality now. Flyers making cap room by not renewing the contract of goalie coach Reggie Lemelin.

7:05 pm: Large crowd at Nassau Colisseum for a draft party. The building could be torched if Tavares doesn't go first.

7:13 pm: Bettman, Cournoyer and the Pocket Rocket...Bettman figures having two Habs legends will reduced the booing against him...didn't work.....neither did his attempt to speak french!

7:18 pm: Islanders take Tavares No. 1 GM Garth Snow says there were no trade offers for the pick of any kind to his liking.

7:20 pm: Leafs GM Brian Burke is mic'd for the event. First tells Bryan Murray how the Bruins deal got screwed up and then tells Bob Gainey that the Vinny rumour is either Montreal or the Islanders.... Gainey has little to say then walks away.

7:27 pm: Tampa takes D Victor Hedman

7:25 pm: Pronger to Philadelphia for Sbisa (Phiily's '08 1st round), this year's #1 and next year's #1

7:38 pm: Colorado Avalanche take Matt Duchene 3rd overall

7:40 pm: TSN's Bob McKenzie listing Duchene's hobbies (guitar, signing, designing hockey sweaters) All key in the Avalanche selecting him I'm sure.

7:45 pm: Evander Kane (named for "The Real Deal") going to Holyfield's hometown, Atlanta.

7:55 pm: LA Kings acknowledge Luc Robitaille (Quebec native drafted by the Kings and a '09 HOFer). Brayden Schenn is picked 5th overall. Brother Luke was picked 5th last year.

7:57 pm: Camera shifts to a dejected Brian Burke who hoped to unite the brothers.

8:00 pm: Reisdorf has apparently tabled an offer of $150 million to keep the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale.

Columbus trades #16 and #77 picks to Islanders for NY's #26, #37, #62 and #92.

Coyotes take Oliver Ekman-Larrsson 6th overall.

8:05 pm: No need to tell you what team is picking now by the crowd reaction. The Blue and White take Nazem Kadri.

Bell Centre crowd is chanting "67" as the Leafs go up to make their pick.

8:10 pm:TSN plays the conversation between Burke and Murray:

Burke:" That's who you want (Kadri)?"

Murray; "Yes."

Burke:"We're gonna take him."

8:18 pm: Dallas takes Scott Glennie. Expected to go in the first round, but maybe a bit of a surprise going in the top 10.

Robert L picked Glennie as his pick for the Canadiens in the SB Nation Mock Draft.

8:27 pm: Senators taked Jared Cowen, with little enthusiasm on their part.

8:34 pm: Oilers select Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson....MPS for short.

Check out his own site: http://www.paajarvi.com/

Note: No American players were picked in the Top 10 for the first time since 1993.

8:44 pm: Memorial Cup MVP Ryan Ellis goes to the Nashville Predators. Nshville building a group of young d-men.

TSN's Pierre McGuire figures he needs three years to develop and that he and Shea Weber will be a lot of fun to watch in a few years in Nashville.

8:50 pm: Looks like the Wild wanted Ellis and now may be trading down with the Islanders.

and they do: Wild trade the #12 pick to the Islanders for #16, #77 and #182.

8:53 pm: Expected to go in a later round, Calvin DeHann is picked by the Islanders

8:55 pm: Chris Pronger on TSN. Said he sent a text to Neidermayer this morning to see what he would be doing.

9:03 pm: The Sabres take Zach Kassian. A Milan Lucic type player..... Mike Komisarek just made his decision to leave the Canadiens.....

9:09 pm: The Panthers take future KHL star Dimitry Kulikov.

9:17 pm: The Anaheim Ducks take Guelph center Peter Holland. Big player but can he give 100% every day. Anaheim could be the team to do that for him.

9:22 pm: Minnesota Wild select Nick Leddy, a Minnesota HS kid. Has won the 2009 "Mr. Hockey" award as top senior high school player in Minnesota. Habs prospects Ryan McDonagh and David Fischer also won this award as well

9:27 pm: St. Louis take offensive point man David Rundblad.

9:30 pm: The Canadiens are on the clock. My choice is Jacob Josefson. But will Bob Gainey go with hometown boy Louis Leblanc????

9:35 pm: to a thunderous ovation. Louis Leblanc is selected.

Bob Gainey acknowledges the importance of the francophone culture in the organization.

"Louis fit perfectly into our wheelhouse," Gainey said. "We got a good, competitive player."

Gainey adds that they would have traded up to get him.

9:41 pm: LeBlanc "I was hoping that it was the Canadiens." While Gainey would give him a couple years to develop at Harvard, LeBlanc said he would be willing to wait one or two and see waht happens.

9:44 pm: Rangers honor Alexei Cheraponov, who passed away this past winter during a game.

The Rangers select Chris Kreider from Andover Academy.

9:51 pm: Calgary trades pick #20 to New Jersey for picks #23 and #84

9:54 pm: My choice for the Habs, Jacob Josefson, is picked by the Devils. Considered by many as the best two-way player in the draft.

9:57 pm: Anaheim trades their #21 (from the earlier Pronger deal) to Columbus for picks #26 and #37

10:00 pm: The Bluejackets take Scott Moore from the USHL

HabsInsideOut.com poster: Ayan_SB suggests the Flames/Devils deal was Sutter's way of saying, "sorry for stealing your coach/my brother."

10:08 pm: Roberto Luongo annouces the Canucks pick, Jordan Schroeder.

Canucks' GM Mike Gillis: Tells TSN that the Canucks had Schroeder ranked much higher and they were surprised to be able to pick him.

Gillis says the Canucks are on target in their contract extension talks with Luongo, and is confident the Sedins will be back in Vancouver.

10:12 pm: The Calgary Flames take defenceman Tim Erixon. His dad, Jan, played for the Rangers alongside Alex Kovalev.

10:20 pm: Sweden's record seventh pick in the first round, made by the Washington Capitals, is Marcus Johansson.

Brian Burke audio: Says a deal in the work for the No. 1 pick, but the Islanders wanted Luke Schenn.

10:27 pm: The Bruins pick Jordan Caron of the Rimouski Oceanic. Last time he'll get cheered in Montreal.

10:34 pm: The Ducks take Kyle Palmeiri. Many suspect his removal from the USNDT but TSN think it was do to a "boys will be boys" issue at a tournament. He'll play at Notre Dame this fall.

10:40 pm: Philippe Paradis and his 95.7 mph slapshot goes to the Carolina Hurricanes.

10:45 pm: Scotty Bowman to make the Blackhawks selection to a warm reception. The latest the Blackhawks have had to wait to pick in the first round at No. 27. and they take Camrose Jr. A star Dylan Olsen. He could go to Medicine Hat (WHL) or the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

10:48 pm: Detroit to give up their first round pick (#29) for the Lightning's #32 and #75 picks.

Not that Detroit relies on number one picks to be a winner: see Henrik Zetterberg.

10:54 pm: Carter Ashton, son of Brent, is selected by the Lightning.

10:58 pm: Round one concludes with the Penguins selection, Simon Despres.

Ammo for Don Cherry: According to NHL.com, 16 picks in the first round are Canadian. Seven Americans, six Swedes (TSN said seven earlier) and one Russian.

Canadiens/Lightning deal could depend on Islanders first round pick.

Tampa Bay Lightning GM Brain Lawton and Habs GM Bob Gainey

T-minus 47 hours and counting until the start of the 2009 NHL Draft.

As team general managers and staff from all thirty teams, as well as top prospects expected to go in the first rounds ascend on the Bell Centre, the trade rumors circulate more and more.

For Canadiens fans, the “topic-des-last six months” has been Viincent LeCavalier coming to Montreal.

An apparent deal between Montreal and the Tampa Bay Lightning was killed when names of players the Canadiens were planning to move were made public.

Habs' GM Bob Gainey pointed fingers at Tampa GM Brian Lawton for leaking the names after Montreal’s season ended.

Lawton quickly dismissed the allegations.

With the Lightning struggling in the bank account, it seems imminent that they will move their franchise player before his no-trade clause kicks on July 1.

Despite the verbal exchange between Lawton and Gainey, a Montreal-Tampa deal still shows high on the rumor charts.

The question is, who is Tampa willing to move?

In media interviews today, Lawton seemed determined that LeCavalier would remain in Tampa.

Lawton smiles too much when he talks for my liking. I think he’s bluffing.

So if he is moving LeCavalier, the Canadiens would have to give up a fair bit.

The initial speculated deal in January involved forwards Chris Higgins and Tomas Plekanec, prospect defenseman P.K. Subban and draft picks/prospects going to Tampa.

This scenario could still work with Higgins being a RFA. The prospect could be a goalie with Kari Ramo reportedly off to the KHL.

Subban would be likely substituted as he just signed with the Canadiens this spring.

The key to the deal between the two teams could be dependent on who the New York Islanders select first.

If New York goes with Victor Hedman, that’s how the deal could go.

With Tampa having the number two pick Friday, they can grab John Tavares to fill the void at forward and still have Martin St. Louis and the learning Steve Stamkos with a lower payroll for a couple years.

The alternate scenario could go a different way though.

Still provided that Hedman goes first, Tampa could give up their pick (Tavares) and a few others lesser players for Montreal’s 18th overall pick and a smaller package of players.

Maybe throwing Martin St. Louis into the mix will sweeten the Canadiens end of the pot, and help Tampa’s pocket book.

Montreal retains some cap room to announce that Saku Koivu (on the cheap), Alex Kovalev and, maybe, Mike Komisarek (depending on the Islanders choice) are re-signed.

If Tavares goes to the Islanders, we could see possible a deal along the latter of the two or a deal back to square one.

With a stash of centres in this years draft likely to go in the first round, both Montreal and the Lightning could still have a winner in the draft down the middle.

In all likelihood, we won’t know officially though until sometime early Friday evening when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman takes the stage to make any deal official.

Canadiens making bench moves first before the Draft and free agency frenzy

“Silent Bob” Gainey has not been so quiet this week with the Montreal Canadiens.

With the pending new ownership of the team by the Molson brothers now in place, he can now safely begin making changes to the organization.

First, there was a rather surprising move with the removal of Hamilton Bulldogs head coach Don Lever and assistant coach Ron Wilson.

Lever had been the teams longest serving coach and Wilson had been part of the team for even longer.

They led the Bulldogs to the Calder Cup championship in 2006-07 and many expected Lever to be a leading candidate to fill the head coaching job in Montreal.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Lever to the Hamilton Spectator. “Somewhere along the line I must have done something wrong, but they didn’t tell me what it was.

“I just don’t understand how I can be called up and then discarded.”

Lever had been brought up to Montreal as an assistant after the sacking of Guy Carbonneau.

Wilson was named as the Bulldogs interim coach and had a respectable 10-3-2 record.

In the playoffs, they lost in six games in a division semi-final series.

The firing of the duo was certainly a head scratcher as many of the young Canadiens players played in the Hammer under their tutelage.

The changes continued on today when it was announced that associate coach Doug Jarvis was let go.

When Jacques Martin was hired, it had been announced that the new Canadiens head coach would meet with both Jarvis and assistant coach Kirk Muller.

The meeting with Muller clearly went well as he will be staying on for the upcoming season.

Maybe Martin is a Trekkie and likes the thought of having “Captain Kirk”” with him.

While Jarvis is known more for his defense as a player, he did put a power-play that led the league for two straight seasons (2006-07, 2007-08).

This season however, the PP fell apart and obviously someone had to answer for it.

So the next stage for the Canadiens will be the 2009 Entry Draft on Friday.

Bob Gainey has gone on record that he has made some preliminary talks with pending restricted free agents, but will not be negotiating with any pending free agents on his roster until after this weekend.

With a whack of pending UFAs and RFAs and the new salary cap to be announced within days, it does give Gainey some play room to make a blockbuster deal before or during the Draft to fill any potential voids that could be left after July 1.

The Vincent LeCavalier deal speculation picked up steam today as the battle for control of the Tampa Bay Lightning between Oren Koules and Len Barrie apparently found itself in NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s office.

Meanwhile Jacques Martin will still need to find a second assistant behind the bench, as well as a new goaltending coach.

Centering in on the Montreal Canadiens’ First Round pick at the ‘09 Draft

With just over a week to go before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, Habs GM Bob Gainey is busy reviewing scouting reports and evaluations before making that key announcement on June 26.

Many panelists and mock-drafts already posted online all seem to agree that, this year, Montreal needs to get a centre to bolster the lineup down the road.

This season’s crop of prospects seems to be the year for the Canadiens to do just that.

Barring a blockbuster trade, we can rule out John Tavares, Brayden Schenn or Matt Duchene to be picked by the Canadiens.

So let’s look at some other possibilities.

Louis Leblanc 6’1” 180 Omaha (USHL)

Ranked #13 amongst North American skaters

The native of Kirkland, QC is heavily favored as Montreal’s first round pick.

Leblanc made the easy transition from Midget to the USHL and will be going to Harvard this fall.

Assets:

- good hockey sense

-little difficulty playing with other elite players.

– Makes smart quick passes and uses his linemates exceptionally well off the rush and on the powerplay.

Nazem Kadri 6’0” 180 London (OHL)

Ranked #15 amongst North American skaters

Playing in the shadow of Tavares, Kadri will need to bulk up to get to the level he has achieved, in Junior, at the pro level.

His passing is suspect and he may benefit more on the wing.

Assets:

- best offensive assets are his vision and hockey sense

- his speed can create mismatches and opportunities

- dangerous on the PK when he can focus on a certain assignment.

- can anticipate the play and pick off passes.

- has the intelligence and hustle to be a solid defensive play

Peter Holland 6’2” 190 Guelph (OHL)

Ranked #19 amongst North American skaters

Already with some great size, but is known not to give a 100% effort on every shift.

He does not play in heavy traffic on a regular basis and often doesn't commit to all his defensive responsibilities.

Assets:

- His puck skills rival the majority of skilled forwards in the draft

- can stickhandle to create nice passes.

- Quick and accurate shot

- Can use his body well to shield the puck

Chris Kreider 6’2” 200 Andover Academy HS (MA)

Ranked #14 amongst North American skaters

Could you imagine Bob Gainey stealing a high school kid right out of Boston’s back yard?

No matter who picks him, they will want him to move on to a more competitive league to accelerate his development.

Assets:

- displays good puck skills when it comes to passing and shooting

- good size already

- fast skater for his size

Drew Shore 6’3” 195 (USNTDP)

Ranked #28 amongst North American Skaters

Not the fastest skater out of the gate,His skating but once he gets moving he can keep pace with his faster linemates.

Se will be playing for the University of Denver next season.

Assets:

- likes to get involved around the net and the dirty areas

- makes an honest effort in all three zones

- tries to make sure his defensive responsibilities are covered

Jacob Josefson 6’0” 190 Djurgardens (SWE)

Ranked #3 amongst European Skaters

Does not have the greatest puck skills, but is one of those players who can be in the right place with or without the puck.

A player that does all the little things needed to make the big-name stars shine.

Assets:

- Smart and has the hockey sense to be a solid and versatile two-way forward.

- takes hits to make plays

- has the two-step quickness and agility

Kyle Palmieri 5’10” 191 (NDTP U18)

Ranked #20 amongst North American Skaters

Impressed many at this month’s NHL combine with his physical strength and appearance.

He will be going to Notre Dame this fall.

Assets:

- Good skater that works hard

- excellent two-way forward

- Good hockey insight

- Compared to Chris Drury in his playing style