These days, when it comes to ranking the Canadiens’ prospects, everyone has an opinion.
As an aside, I’d like to see the NHL rank its prospects. MLB does it, and it’s very easy to see the best prospects on each team, at each position… or the very best.
But that has less to do with the rest of this text. I’m just throwing this out there for fun.
Getting back to the Habs, everyone has a list with their differences… but there are some certainties. Guys like David Reinbacher, Lane Hutson, Joshua Roy, Logan Mailloux and Jacob Fowler are often well ranked.
Marc Antoine Godin and Arpon Basu have – in order or out of order – all five guys in their top-5.
By the way, Grant McCagg has also decided to make his top-10… and he also has the five guys named above well placed. He does, however, have another player at #3, pushing Fowler to #6.
His man in the third spot? Oliver Kapanen.
He ranks only Reinbacher and Hutson ahead of Kapanen, which says a lot about how he sees him. Because yes, more and more, Kapanen is well and truly publicly ranked among the club’s hopefuls.
Because Kapanen is a center who can do everything well on the ice, has risen in the playoffs (in Finland) and at the World Championship recently, McCagg ranks him so high.
He’s not the first to say so, but in his eyes, if Kapanen were to show up at the Habs’ training camp, he’d have a good chance of breaking into the Flanelle lineup as early as October 2024.
Remember that he signed a short-term contract in Sweden, which could prevent him from playing in Laval if he were to sign his entry-level contract and not break into the Habs’ lineup in 2024. But expect him to potentially sign with the Habs soon, anyway.
