Welcome back to Catching The Torch, where we keep an eye on the Montreal Canadiens’ North American prospects and how their development is progressing week by week.
Day two of the 2022 NHL Draft has yielded a massive amount of new adds to the Habs’ pool of North American talent, which includes a ton of high-risk, high-reward swings as well as probably the safest pick in the entire draft.
We’ll rifle through each of the seven adds to the pool and grade each of them based on value-for-pick quality, and then break down their areas of strength and the improvements that would most bolster their overall play.
No. 33 — Owen Beck, C, Mississauga (OHL)
Value-for-pick: B+
I love Owen Beck. He is the textbook definition of a safe pick, a surefire NHLer with so many facets to his game that at least one of them is sure to translate. His defensive game is among the best in the 2022 NHL Draft. The way he occupies space in the defensive zone, reads opposing plays two or three steps in advance and uses his stick to disrupt and intercept makes him a prospect who will, at the very least, nail a role in the bottom-six of any NHL lineup.
Owen Beck (MTL) checks off a ton of boxes: above-average tools, inside-driven, defensive skill, give-and-go game. Easy to envision him playing in the NHL, and there’s plenty of runway for improvement. pic.twitter.com/C5WeAPO033
He still offers some promise, however, as a prospect with unrelenting drive who excels in transition. There were higher-upside prospects available and picked soon thereafter, such as goal-scoring winger Jagger Firkus and right-handed defenceman Mattias Hävelid, but Beck offers a good balance to the crop as a bunt in a sea of home-run swings.
His offensive tools lack high-end pop, but it’s easier to build upwards from a solid foundation, and Beck has that.
No. 62 — Lane Hutson, LD, USNTDP (USHL)
Value-for-pick: A
Since my very first viewing of Lane Hutson, I’ve been a massive fan of his game. Although his slight frame at 5’8” and 159 pounds can be an issue, he has without a doubt the best brain of any defenceman in this draft. He can take control of any given shift and display his silky hands, elite understanding of systems and open ice exploitation to make successful play after successful play under pressure. The sequence below will more or less explain it all.
Funnily enough, he also brought an endocrinologist screening to the Combine in order to show scouts that he still has about two inches of bone growth left ahead of him. His main setback at the moment is how easy he is to get around off the rush. Any forward with enough wingspan and strength to drive wide on him ends up with an open lane to the net.
If Hutson works with Adam Nicholas on matching footwork defensively and funneling opponents to the boards, the Habs could have a premier offensive defenceman here. I maintain that if Hutson were 6’0” or taller, he would have been a surefire top-10 pick.
No. 75 — Vinzenz Rohrer, RW, Ottawa (OHL)
Value-for-pick: B
Vinzenz Rohrer’s physical dominance as a 5’11”, 168-pound forward is something you rarely see in the OHL. He uses tremendous body-positioning and stick-work to catch much bigger defenders by surprise and turn pucks over all around the ice. Although the Austrian forward shows some flashes of playmaking, it’s not a consistent element of his game and he tends to end up on the periphery a lot or battling for net-front positioning as a result of his high-intensity forechecking game.
Another fun pick from the Habs. Vinzenz Rohrer’s one of the draft’s most projectable physical players. Violent, and more importantly, he’s always looking to get inside positioning on defenders, then immediately makes the next play. Passing skill & defensive upside, too. pic.twitter.com/L6AWuaDk5s
He plays with speed, intensity, and a mean streak. As he stands, though, his offensive upside is relatively limited. If the Habs manage to add some mid-range scoring and inside-driven playmaking to Rohrer’s game, the combination of that with his bulldog style of play would make for quite a handful at the NHL level.
No. 127 — Cedrick Guindon, C/LW, Owen Sound (OHL)
Value-for-pick: A
Cedrick Guindon’s offensive input is truly a dual-threat, as the prospect’s 30 goals and 29 assists in 68 games clearly show. However, an elite brain and the ability to push the pace are what make Guindon’s game tick.
He delays, plays his passes quickly and accurately to the best option, and even the way he masks his release while hanging on to it shows the intelligence required to beat defenders and goaltenders regularly. Off the puck, he supports his defenders, circles low, and picks up speed to ensure that every play is accelerated and facilitated. There’s a lot of small stuff he does very well.
Another small detail that Guindon displays regularly is his ability to hit pockets of space at the right time to clean up loose pucks. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Guindon make the NHL in a middle-six role in four or five years’ time.
No. 130 —Jared Davidson, C, Seattle (WHL)
Value-for-pick: C+
I caught Jared Davidson on a couple of viewings of other Seattle Thunderbirds prospects, such as Kevin Korchinski and Reid Schaefer, and didn’t come away too impressed with his overall projectability. The over-age centre has a strong release and led his team by a hefty margin of 23 points, but isn’t much of an inside-lane driver and tends to shoot from more or less anywhere. I’ll watch him more closely over the course of this upcoming season and see if I start enjoying his game more with a larger sample size.
No. 162 — Emmett Croteau, G, Waterloo (USHL)
Value for pick: TBD
I don’t have many notes on Emmett Croteau as a prospect if I’m honest — I didn’t spend much time scouting netminders this year and didn’t catch enough Waterloo games to have a lasting impression of his playing style. Stat-wise, he was a top-10 netminder in the USHL and seems to always step it up a notch in the playoffs. The 6’4”, 194-pound goaltender will be my first set of viewings before the fall training camp begins.
This is a great pick for the Habs in this range. Although Miguël Tourigny is small at 5’8” and 178 pounds, his tremendous skating and footwork make him a solid rush defender, and he is one of the most offensively productive blue-liners in the QMJHL at the moment. The twice-over-age prospect follows in the recent Habs trend of selecting Québec-native re-entries in the final rounds.
Riley Kidney’s teammate also plays with an edge and doesn’t back away from offensive activation opportunities, which led him to finish second in QMJHL defencemen for goals (31) and points (80) in 65 games split between the Armada and the Titan. I just wonder if he actually has enough runway ahead of him to develop or if he has already neared his full potential. Regardless, he is a great seventh-round swing for the Habs.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @HadiK_Scouting for more on Habs’ prospects, and to keep up with the rest of my scouting work!
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
