The Canadiens have ample left-shot depth on their NHL roster with their top three options all signed for five more years. But how does this position stack up in their prospect pool?
We’re going to try something a little different this year. Rather than do five-player segments, we’re going to go position by position and then do a full 1-49 prospect ranking at the end. While some players can play their off-side, for simplicity, we’ll strictly look at handedness to sort through the blueliners.
Overview
Here are the criteria that each player had to meet to be eligible to be in these rankings:
1) The player must be 24 years old or younger as of October 1, 2026
2) The player must have no greater than 50 games of NHL experience (including regular season and playoffs)
3) The player cannot be signed to an AHL contract
Left-Shot Defencemen
1) Adam Engstrom, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 92nd overall in 2022.
Engstrom was one of the first players this management group selected who didn’t go in their original draft year. His success may be a factor in the team being more willing to double down on that front since then.
He has all the tools to be a modern-day NHL blueliner. Good size (6’2), strong mobility, and he can move the puck to kickstart transition. He’s also willing to jump into the play which helped result in some impressive offensive numbers with the Rocket. Defensively, some of Engstrom’s decision-making needs to improve although that’s common for a young defender. He got into 15 games with the Habs last season and didn’t look out of place while he made the All-Prospect team in the AHL.
At this point, there isn’t much left for Engstrom to prove in the minors. He’s a high-end top-pairing defender at that level and he needs to get tested more in the NHL. The challenge for the Habs will be finding him that opportunity given the depth in front of him on their roster. While it certainly helps that he can play his off-side, it’s also quite possible that he winds up getting that chance somewhere else. They can hide him in Laval for one more year (since he’s waiver-exempt) but his time is coming soon, one way or the other.
2) Owen Protz, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 102nd overall in 2024.
Generally speaking, players who regress offensively in their second post-draft season don’t sit too high on a prospect list, if they’re signed at all. But offence isn’t going to be Protz’s calling card and he played on a stacked team with the Bulldogs last season; offensive opportunities weren’t as easy to come by.
What he benefited from was a chance to be more of a shutdown defender which is more in line with how he’s going to have success in the pros. We all know he can hit like a truck and frankly, the scarcity of that skill set in Montreal’s system has him elevated a little higher than he should be in the overall rankings. But there is room for a reliable defensive defender who brings some intimidation to the table. We’ve seen how Martin St. Louis wants Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble to be stable defensively before anything else. If Protz can be that, he’ll jump ahead of those two on the depth chart.
It’s going to take some time for Protz to get to that level as he’s going to need to start in more of a depth role in Laval and work his way up from there. But there’s a definite pathway to an NHL spot in this organization down the road.
3) Luke Mittelstadt, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 197th overall in 2023.
I was really tempted to move Mittelstadt up a spot in these rankings. He was his usual steady self to wrap up his college career and then it wasn’t long before he was a key cog on Laval’s back end down the stretch and in the playoffs. He was asked to play a big role and played it well.
But undersized blueliners don’t tend to get as many chances in the NHL and at 5’11, Mittelstadt qualifies as undersized. He will head into next season as a young veteran of sorts, even with it being his rookie year, and will be counted on to potentially be an all-situations player. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that there isn’t a lot of projectability left in his game or his physical tools. That makes Mittelstadt more of a high-floor, low-ceiling player. He can be a very valuable organizational piece for several years but it’s hard to see him getting a chance to make much of an impact with the Canadiens as things stand.
4) Brayden Klimpke, Saskatoon (WHL)
Drafted 117th overall in 2026.
Klimpke found another gear offensively last season with the Blades which likely helped get him on some draft radars. But it’s not often that a smaller defenceman in junior gets the label of being consistently steady and reliable and that’s a profile that has some appeal as well. That earned him nearly 25 minutes per night of playing time.
He can move the puck well, is very mobile, and doesn’t cheat defensively. These are great. But he’s another slightly sub-six-foot defender which isn’t so great; the same concern with Mittelstadt exists here as well. There’s a third-pairing pro profile if all goes well but, being a smaller player, how much of a chance will he get?
With a college commitment starting in 2027-28, the Habs could hold Klimpke’s draft rights for five years under the new rules that started with this year’s draft class. He’s not a draft-and-forget player like some of their dart-throw selections are but the development pathway is going to be a longer one.
5) Maksymilian Szuber, Laval (AHL)
Acquired from Utah in 2026.
The player acquired for Joshua Roy last month, Szuber is far from the same type of player. He’s more of a rugged stay-at-home defender with a nasty side that will come out from time to time.
While he has one career NHL appearance under his belt, the 23-year-old profiles more as a top-four AHL defender than someone who plays with any sort of regularity in the NHL. Assuming he signs (he’s still a restricted free agent) and clears waivers in the fall, Szuber should get the chance to be a top-four piece with the Rocket.
This may not seem like a great return for someone who was once viewed as one of Montreal’s top-ten prospects but Roy was basically a roster filler piece at this point. So is Szuber, which makes it harder to slot him anywhere higher than this on the list.
6) Rasmus Bergqvist, Skelleftea (SHL)
Drafted 224th overall in 2024.
If you want offence, this is the last player you should be looking at. He’s the definition of a low-event defender who held his own in limited minutes in Sweden’s top level which is a good thing and a bad thing in itself. The good is that he’s doing reasonably well but the bad is that he’s not getting an opportunity to further his all-around game at a lower level. That’s lowering what is a pretty low ceiling already.
Over the next two years, if Bergqvist can play his way into more of a top-four role in the SHL, it’s possible that he plays his way into a contract offer from the Habs before his rights expire. That’s not the likely outcome at this time, however.
7) Maxon Vig, Bemidji State (NCAA)
Drafted 209th overall in 2025.
A player who wasn’t picked in his first year of eligibility, Vig fills the type of player the Habs seemed to be targeting in the 2026 draft – some size and grit. The added bonus is that his shot is a decent weapon as well; he scored a dozen goals in his final USHL season and six last year in his freshman year in college.
But he’s still pretty raw overall and his skating and in-zone defending will need to improve to have a shot at getting a pro contract. Vig didn’t hurt his value last season but he needs to show more before he can start to move up the rankings.
8) Jean-Samuel Daigneault, Brantford (OHL)
Drafted 221st overall in 2026.
There is one element that got him drafted and no, it’s not being the son of a former Canadiens player and coach. Daigneault is a rough-and-tumble blueliner, one that Elite Prospects said made him arguably the meanest player in the draft class. Given that the Atlantic Division seems to be loading up on physicality, that helped shape Montreal’s drafting last month with Daigneault being the last of their picks targeting that particular element.
But he didn’t exactly play a big role in the USHL last season and it will be interesting to see how he fares moving up to the OHL, a considerably tougher level. If he can have a Protz-like effect over the next couple of years (that’s where he played in junior), the Habs could have something here. But otherwise, he profiles as a player who isn’t likely to be signed.