Quoting: jonh514
No sir. The Habs have the best U23 LHD! But I take your meaning that there is no reason for Anaheim to pick a LHD this season!
All kidding aside, the Habs fans who crap on Zegras and praise Dach are behaving in a typical way for this site, but are wrong to do so.
Everyone around here is obsessed with the idea of "new" players being the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Every player not picked 1st overall is gonna have holes in their game. Very few players picked 2-10 this year are going to score more points over the next 5 years than Zegras.
The Habs would be buying acceleration, and you have to pay for that.
I mean, the first LHD you guys have on the Athletic are down in Tier 8 with LaCombe, while Anaheims got Mintyukov and Zellweger up in Tiers 5 and 6. Yeah, I think there are more NHL level LHD in MTLs pipeline, but how many do you need?
And we've got Hinds who was defensive Damn of the year in the Q last season, and Vaakainen, while older than 23, has finally bourn the fruits of our labors, him and Gudas were one of the best shutdown pairs in the league this season.
Detroit also has an extremely potent LHD pipeline with lots of high end talent.
As to Acceleration though, I agree, you have to pay for that in this league, also the risk that the guy taken with a pick busts, which is very real even at 6 (Cody Glass, Jakob Vrana, etc)
https://theathletic.com/5197201/2024/01/16/nhl-players-prospects-ranking-under-23/