Michel Therrien says Habs didn't have a lot to develop during his time in Montreal
When the Montreal Canadiens brought back Michel Therrien as Head Coach in 2012, they had just selected Alex Galchenyuk with the third overall pick. Beyond Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher, the prospect pool wasn't very deep and in an interview recently with 'Le Poche Bleu', Therrien said that there wasn't a whole lot to develop in the system.
Therrien went on to add that he wasn't too happy when going to the teams' rookie camps every year saying: "I would attend these rookie camps and leave thinking to myself- and there were a couple of camps where none of the players ended up playing in the NHL- and I'd ask myself 'which of these guys is going to be good enough to play? I wouldn't see many. Some camps, you'd have two or three that would show you something; speed, engagement and hockey IQ, which is really important."
The Canadiens had five drafts while Therrien was in his second stint as head coach and it's safe to say there wasn't many that transitioned into full-time players for Montreal.
In their 2012 draft class, Alex Galchenyuk and Charles Hudon were the only two to play for the Canadiens. 2013 saw a handful, most notably Artturi Lehkonen, who enjoyed plenty of success in Montreal before his trade to Colorado.
2014 was a bad draft, with seventh round pick Jake Evans being the only one to play consistently for the Canadiens and still does to this day. 2015 wasn't much better, Noah Juulsen played 48 games for the Canadiens before they placed him on waivers prior to the 2020-21 season.
Things got a bit better at the 2016 draft, eight months before Therrien got fired. With the ninth overall pick, they selected Mikhail Sergachev, who went on to be traded to Tampa Bay, winning two Stanley Cups, in exchange for Jonathan Drouin. Victor Mete and Michael Pezzetta also came out of this draft class.
Montreal's drafting history during Therrien's time with the organization is pretty poor and he comments could be aimed at Trevor Timmins, the scouting staff and development staff. But at the same time, scouts aren't always correct and it's extremely hard to predict where a player may be in the future in terms of their development path. Although, it's understandable to see where Therrien is coming from just by a quick glance at their draft history from 2012 to 2016.
Source: Montreal Hockey Now
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Werenski | 2 | 3 | 5 | |
| Sean Monahan | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Jesper Bratt | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Frederick Gaudreau | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Jack Hughes | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Nikita Kucherov | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Mackenzie Weegar | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Kent Johnson | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Alexander Wennberg | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Mitchell Chaffee | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Anthony Cirelli | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Matthew Coronato | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Marcus Foligno | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Nick Foligno | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Conor Geekie | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Brandon Hagel | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Stefan Noesen | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Corey Perry | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Igor Sharangovich | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Dmitry Voronkov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 19 | 16 | 3 | - | 32 | |
Wild | 19 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 29 | |
Hurricanes | 19 | 14 | 5 | - | 28 | |
Devils | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Capitals | 19 | 13 | 5 | 1 | 27 | |
Golden Knights | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Maple Leafs | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Rangers | 18 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 25 | |
Panthers | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 25 | |
Flames | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 25 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||