Happy Thanksgiving and NHL stuff

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone had some good eats over the weekend. Since my thanksgiving was just me and the folks this year, my dad cooked a prime rib instead on the ol' BBQ. I'm thankful we had that instead of turkey.


So, some interesting rumblings out of the NHL in that Bettman did not rule out the possibility of a return to the NHL for the Quebec Nordiques contingent on a new arena being built in Quebec City. My opinion of "I'll believe it when I see it" with regards to anything that little weasel Bettman says it did get me thinking of when the Nordiques were in the NHL.

It also got me thinking about a rule in the six team NHL era that allowed the Montreal Canadiens to have first crack at any Francophone NHL players. This rule was ended in the early 1970's as the league had expanded to 12 teams but the players were still largely Canadian and the already powerhouse Canadiens were able to unfairly get players like Guy Lafleur and Rejean Houle before the much weaker expansion teams.

However, with 30 teams in the NHL and almost half of all NHL's coming from countries other than Canada it got me wondering if such a rule would be feasible again. So, for the sake of killing time and fun let's assume the Quebec Nordiques never moved and are still in Quebec. Let's keep the rule simple, and say that if the Quebec Nordiques or Montreal Canadiens have a first round pick they MUST draft a Quebec born player but they have access to any Quebec born player, regardless of where they pick. So, if Montreal has the 10th pick, and there is a francophone player projected to go fourth Montreal could get that player.

I've taken the first round picks from the last 20 years for the Habs and the Nordiques/Avs to see how their different the teams may have looked. Note that whoever finished lower in the standings between Montreal and Quebec gets the first pick of the francophones.

Montreal
Actually Picked Francophone Picked
1988 Eric Charron Martin Gelinas
1989 Lindsay Vallis Steve Larouche
1990 Turner Stevenson Karl Dykhuis
1991 Brent Bilodeau Martin Lapointe
1992 David Wilkie Manny Fernandez
1993 Saku Koivu Alexandre Daigle
1994 Brad Brown Jean-Yves Laroux
1995 Terry Ryan J.S Giguire
1996 Matt Higgins J.P. Dumont
1997 Jason Ward Roberto Luongo
1998 Eric Chouinard Vincent Lecavalier
1999 N/A Martin Grenier
2000 Ron Hainsey Antoine Vermette
2001 Mike Komisarek Pascal Leclaire
2002 Chris Higgins Pierre Marc Bouchard
2003 Andrei Kostitsyn Marc-Andre Fleury
2004 Kyle Chipchura Alexandre Picard
2005 Carey Price Benoit Pouliot
2006 David Fischer Jonathon Bernier
2007 Max Pacioretty David Perron
2008 N/A Nicolas Deschamps
2009 Louis LeBlanc Jordan Caron


Quebec/Colorado
Actually Picked Francophone Picked
1988 Curtis Leschyshyn Daniel Dore
1989 Mats Sundin Patrice Brisebois
1990 Owen Nolan Martin Brodeur
1991 Eric Lindros Patrick Poulin
1992 Todd Warriner Paul Brousseau
1993 Jocelyn Thibault Jocelyn Thibault
1994 Wade Belak Eric Fichaud
1995 Marc Denis Denis Gauthier
1996 Peter Ratchuk Daniel Briere
1997 Kevin Grimes J.F. Fortin
1998 Alex Tanguay Alex Tanguay
1999 Mikhail Kuleshov Brent Clouthier
2000 Vaclav Nedorost Mathieu Chouinard
2001 N/A Jason Pominville
2002 Jonas Johansson Martin Vagner
2003 N/A Steve Bernier
2004 Wojtek Wolski Nick Fugere
2005 N/A Luc Bourdon
2006 Chris Stewart Derick Brassard
2007 Kevin Shattenkirk Angelo Esposito
2008 N/A Yann Sauve
2009 Matt Duchene Louis Leblanc

Interesting. As expected from drafting out of the QMJHL, lots of offense and goaltending and light on defense. The 2000s have great for producing excellent prospects out of the QMJHL, following a terrible 1990s. Most of the Canadian players drafted in the 1990s were out of either the WHL or OHL. Likely, both Quebec and Montreal would have a glut of great goaltenders that they could trade and have excellent clubs because of that. Colorado likely would not have 2 Stanley Cups though without being able to draft Sundin, Lindros and Nolan.

That's it for time wastin today.

Cheers.