What if the Canadiens Didn’t Draft Louis Leblanc?

Louie Leblanc looked like he would be a good player coming out of Harvard. I remember seeing him and thinking he was decent. He was 6’0” and had a slight scoring touch. The red flag was probably, he’s smart, you don’t get to play for Harvard any other way.

Being smart didn’t help him. He had 10 points in 50 games and I would imagine the pressure for playing in front of your “hometown” fans, so to speak, was a lot. But this is where things get interesting.

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Leblanc was selected 18th overall in the 2009 NHL Draft. The player selected 19th had a reputation for being a goal scorer. He was a Massachusetts kid who played for Boston College. He had size at 6’3” and rare speed. It was Chris Kreider. I know many are now mad that I mentioned him.

I never realized this and never thought about this aspect, but for those who thought Kreider ran Carey Price in the 2014 Conference Finals if he had been on the Canadiens, this wouldn’t have happened, and it’s just an odd thing, that’s all.

Kreider won a gold medal at the World Juniors in 2010 and has had a great career, scoring 314 goals, fourth in that draft class. My basic point is that making an error like this is partially on the player and partially on the team. There is some luck with the draft, but Kreider was a known player. He was skinnier than today, but everything else was there.

That 2009 draft was a complete wash. That hurt the franchise. Oddly enough, David Savard was a fourth-rounder in this draft.

The Canadiens could have drafted him.