Canadiens fans now know a little better about Sean Farrell, the organization’s top offensive prospect according to a majority of observers — a list that excludes 2022 first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, since he was playing in the NHL full-time at the time of his injury.
Farrell even scored his first career goal in his first appearance at the Bell Center on Thursday, courtesy of Florida Panthers goaltender Alex Lyon, who was weak on the young man’s shot.
Farrell was considered the team’s premier young forward prospect by virtue of his 53-point season in just 34 games at Harvard, and his appearance in the Olympics and World Championship at just 20 years old last year .
But the average Canadian fan is less familiar with the prospects in the American college ranks since NCAA rules prevent them from participating in National League training camps.
Farrell, Hutson and the others can only take part in the summer development camp for a few days in July, where there are no games scheduled.
It is always very dangerous to draw up lists of the best hopes. The Canadian’s most recent training camp has sown some confusion in this regard. Owen Beck and Filip Mesar, freshly drafted by the Canadian, eclipsed Riley Kidney and Joshua Roy even though they were a year younger. We kept them until the end, or almost. Beck had four preseason games, Mesar three, against only two for Roy and one for Kidney.
Points aren’t everything, but Beck and Mesar didn’t smash everything in the OJL this winter.
Beck, a center drafted 33rd overall, the first in the second round, in 2022, started the season strong at Mississauga, with 41 points in 30 games, but his production dropped to 25 points, including 7 goals, after his trade in Peterborough, for 66 points in 60 total games.
Mesar, a first-round pick, 26th overall that year, doesn’t even have a point per game, 51 points, including 17 goals, in 52 games in Kitchener.
In the year since being drafted by the Canadiens in the fifth round in 2021, Roy has amassed 119 points, including 51 goals, in 66 games in Sherbrooke of the Quebec Major Junior League.
Being born in July 2003, therefore one of the youngest in his 2021 vintage, he is only six months older than Mesar, born in January 2004, one of the oldest in the following vintage. He is still 19, like Mesar and Beck, born in February 2004.
Kidney turned 20 last week. The most discreet of the quartet in training camp is coming off a phenomenal year in the QMJHL with 110 points in just 60 games, after a season of 100 points in 66 games the previous year.
A big production in the junior ranks does not open the door to a great career in the NHL, but you still need a minimum of production in the juniors to hope to produce at the same rate in the National League.
Interesting aspect in Roy’s case: not only did he maintain an interesting production in juniors this winter with 99 points, including 46 goals, in 55 games, but he enjoyed a prominent role within the Canadian team at the World Junior Championship.
He was destined for a more defensive role, but he produced as part of an offensive line with 11 points in seven games, including timely goals at critical moments, while remaining a vital part in defensive situations.
Beck nevertheless made up the lucky winner of the four during an emergency call-up by the Canadiens to Ottawa on January 28. The next training camp should provide us with more answers.
Like what the evaluation of hopes is sometimes complex, the winger Emil Heineman, 21 years old, obtained in the exchange of Tyler Toffoli, was shut out in three playoff games of the first division in Sweden (SHL), relegated within of a fourth line, having scored 8 goals in 35 regular season games.
Heineman was invited to join the Laval Rocket of the American League, a much more competitive circuit than the SHL, and there he was already four goals in as many games with the Rocket, dominating on a third line with Jan Mysak and Pierrick Dube. Heineman, 6-foot-1, had had a very good training camp in Montreal before being injured. Coach Jean-François Houle, usually cautious with compliments for youngsters, recently revealed on BPM Sports that his new colt has a high ceiling.
Among other offensive prospects, Luke Tuch, 21, a power forward drafted in the second round in 2020, has 20 points in 39 games at Boston University, ranked 11th in scoring on his team. At this age, and in his third season in the NCAA, we can expect better production to hope for an offensive player in the NHL.
He and teammate Lane Hutson will play in the NCAA Tournament semifinal against the University of Minnesota next week. Once his season is over, Kent Hughes will decide if he is worth a contract or not.
Mention to Rhett Pitlick, (brother of Rem) 22, 24 points in 38 games at the University of Minnesota, opponents Boston University, Oliver Kapanen, 19, 2021 second-round pick, 27 points in 55 games in Finnish first division (SM-Liiga), Joël Teasdale, Xavier Simoneau, Vinzenz Rohrer, Cédrick Guindon and Jared Davidson, a little further down the hierarchy.
Sean Farrell and Lane Hutson were not selected Thursday among the three finalists for the Hobey-Baker trophy, awarded annually to the player par excellence in the American college ranks. They were previously among the ten finalists.
They were preferred Logan Cooley, third overall pick in 2022, 57 points in 37 games at the University of Minnesota, in the powerful Big Ten division, Adam Fantilli, probable second or third pick in 2023, 64 points in 35 games at the University of Michigan, in the same section, but also Matthew Knies, Cooley’s teammate.
The nomination of Knies, 20, a second-round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2021, is more questionable. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound power forward had terrific linemates in Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud. He finished 18th in scoring in the NCAA with 41 points in 38 games.
Farrell played in a less competitive division at Harvard, the ACAC, but his 53 points in 34 games remain impressive and his team still went 3-2-2 in games against teams from other divisions, including a draw against the mighty Michigan Wolverines.
The affront is worse for Hutson. This is his first season in college. He finished first in scoring on his team even though he plays defense, seventh in the NCAA overall, with 48 points in 38 games. He just broke Brian Leetch’s record for most points by a defenseman in the year following an NHL Draft selection.
His team, Boston University, has just reached the four aces, and will face the University of Minnesota on April 6.
At least Farrell will be able to console himself by having scored his first NHL career goal the very evening of the announcement of the three finalists…
1- In a very unexciting game Thursday night at the Bell Center, Guillaume Lefrançois took advantage of Sean Farrell’s first career goal to talk about the young man’s handling by veteran Alex Belzile at the dawn of this first meeting at the Center Bell for the rookie.
2- Katherine Harvey-Pinard recounts the progress of Quebecer Jahmyl Telfort, in his third season with the Northeastern basketball team, in the NCAA.
3- The current offseason is more alive than ever in the NFL. Nicholas Richard offers an account of the most significant changes, position by position. Today we are talking about defensive players.
