Habs trade Leblanc to Ducks for Conditional pick

[northendhockeynut]

The Habs have traded forward Louis Leblanc to the Anaheim Ducks for a conditional fifth-round selection in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft ...

TSN story ...

a first round flop or a player that needs a change of scenery ... I don't follow the Habs minor league players to know a lot about what his chances were of making the Habs as a regular

 

[Superdoup]

First round flop. No chances of making the big team with Therrien and Bergevin as a GM. Could be useful for the Ducks on a third or fourth line but even. probably a minor player for his career. but for a 5th round pick...nothing to lose here for the Ducks. another bad move from the habs.

 

[S4Kh4r0v]

First round flop. No chances of making the big team with Therrien and Bergevin as a GM. Could be useful for the Ducks on a third or fourth line but even. probably a minor player for his career. but for a 5th round pick...nothing to lose here for the Ducks. another bad move from the habs.

The bad move is not the trade, but to have drafted him in the first place. Habs fans have a tendency to "request" French-speaking players, good or not. I believe the Habs management decided to give the fans a cookie when they selected him.

The kid had absolutely no chance of ever making the team. The Habs just decided to get something out of him instead of keeping him forever in the minors while waiting to lose him to free agency for nothing. They got a 5th round pick, who at this point has a better chance at ever making the team than Leblanc does.

 

[c_bass22]

The bad move is not the trade, but to have drafted him in the first place. Habs fans have a tendency to "request" French-speaking players, good or not. I believe the Habs management decided to give the fans a cookie when they selected him.

The kid had absolutely no chance of ever making the team. The Habs just decided to get something out of him instead of keeping him forever in the minors while waiting to lose him to free agency for nothing. They got a 5th round pick, who at this point has a better chance at ever making the team than Leblanc does.

Couldn't agree more John!!! That sums it up :beer:

 

[RGM81]

Thing to remember too is the Leblanc is a pending RFA coming off his entry level deal. The Habs don't have enough contracts (each team has a max of 50) to offer him a new one, so they're cutting their losses.

He had a pretty bad ankle injury a couple seasons ago that really set back his development. He wasn't exactly the best skater before it, and he's less so since it. Plus, at just 178 pounds there were concerns that he wouldn't be able to take the abuse dished out from bigger opponents on a regular basis.

And finally, he envisioned himself as a top-six forward. That's clearly not going to be the case for him. Habs saw him as a third line/checking role player (odd for a mid-1st round pick I know) but he never saw fit to try to adapt his game to that vision.

The writing was on the wall for Leblanc's future when he was one of the first guys cut from camp last September. And then he went on to have a 13-15-28 season in Hamilton in 70 games. When your numbers are mediocre at the AHL level, and you expect to be given a top-six role....sorry, sport, but that just doesn't mesh. He'd been passed by just about every other B+ and better prospect in the Habs organization.

So it's a parting of the ways that gives him an opportunity to get his career back on track in a new organization. The condition on the "conditional" part of the draft pick is that if he doesn't play 15 games with Anaheim in 2014-15, the Habs don't get the 5th round pick.

 

[Burner]

I remember Trevor Timmins reading off Leblanc's name at the draft. He seemed like he was absolutely disinterested. To me it sounded like it wasn't his pick. Maybe Gainey sealing his legacy with picking a french-canadian in the first round in Quebec along with his other horrible moves that year.

 

[tiger tiger]

Habs fans have a tendency to "request" French-speaking players, good or not. I believe the Habs management decided to give the fans a cookie when they selected him.

This was a huge cookie for the fans. The draft was in Montreal. Habs didn't have a 2nd round pick. So management probably felt it needed to make a bit of a "splash" if they couldn't pull some sort of blockbuster deal.

It could have been a toss up between picking guys like Kreider, Moore and Schroeder, Despres at that spot, since all were available, and some were ranked higher than Leblanc too. I think in the end it was between Leblanc and Despres, and Leblanc could had the potential to be a "Gainey" type player, so they went with him.

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

There is always a few hidden gems, how great would it have been for the Habs if they hit a hidden Gem that was French Canadian. A cookie to the fans with high hopes, problem was there were good player in that draft that they could have had instead. The next player selected was Chris Kredier lol, some other names that jump to me are Ryan O'Reilly and Kyle Clifford. The french fans will still probably grumble because they traded him.

 

[Burner]

This was a huge cookie for the fans. The draft was in Montreal. Habs didn't have a 2nd round pick. So management probably felt it needed to make a bit of a "splash" if they couldn't pull some sort of blockbuster deal.

It could have been a toss up between picking guys like Kreider, Moore and Schroeder, Despres at that spot, since all were available, and some were ranked higher than Leblanc too. I think in the end it was between Leblanc and Despres, and Leblanc could had the potential to be a "Gainey" type player, so they went with him.

Kreider seems like a typical Timmins pick to me: tall, big, fast skater, and American.

Leblanc on the other hand... there were doubts if he would even leave Harvard or do a full 4 year stint there.

 

[tiger tiger]

Kreider looks like a beast. Having him with Galchenyuk would have been nuts.

 

[paulxing]

This is Kyle Chipchura all over again.