The NHL Draft Is Already Off It's Dang Rocker With The Montreal Canadiens Trading Both Of Their 1st Round Picks To NYI For Noah Dobson
Minas Panagiotakis. Getty Images.The New York Islanders are going to be selecting Matthew Schaeffer with the 1st overall pick in tonight's NHL Draft. They will build their blueline around the 18-year-old moving forward. Most teams would be holding on to a great, young, right-handed defenseman like Noah Dobson. But the New York Islanders are in a position where they can afford to move away from him for the right price.
That price was apparently TWO 1st round picks courtesy of the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal gets Noah Dobson, and immediately sign him to an 8-year, $9.5M AAV extension. It's a great pick up for Montreal, no doubt about it. Dobson was the 12th overall pick in the 2018 Draft. He had some injury issues to deal with this year, but he put up a 70-point season in 2023-24. He's young, he's fast, he's a good skater, and he can obviously produce offensively.
With that being said…holy fucking overpay.
Moving on from both 1st round picks this year is wild. I don't remember the last time a player was traded for multiple 1st round picks. I get that Noah Dobson is likely better than any option the Habs could have grabbed with the 16th or 17th pick this year. But trading both of those picks is the type of price you'd pay to get a top 10 defenseman in the league. Noah Dobson sure as shit isn't that. You could argue he's a top 20 defenseman in the league, but even that's not a lock. He's a top 18-25 type of guy. Which, again, is a really good addition for Montreal. But the Islanders made out like bandits in this trade.
And obviously this was just part 1 of their 2-part plan here to trade back into the top 5 of the draft to take local kid James Hagens. They'll take Schaeffer with the 1st pick, try to find a way to send both of these picks they just got from Montreal to either Utah or Nashville, and jump ahead of the Flyers to take James Hagens at 4 or 5. Everybody knows this is the plan, so I'm sure Utah and Nashville are going to make it tough to make that deal. But they sure as shit have the ammunition they need now. Mathieu Darche is going to be glued to the phone for the next 7 hours.