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Over the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing Montreal’s prospects by position.  Now, we put them all together and rank them from first through 49th overall.

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

If you’re looking for a write-up on a particular player, those were covered in the position pieces.  Linked at the bottom are all those columns; the one corresponding to each player is in the right-hand column of the table above.

Risers

We didn’t do a Prospect Rankings series last year but we did in 2024-25 so we’ll use that as a benchmark.

Volokhin is the biggest riser, moving from 20th to 8th overall.  This is one that involves a lot of projection given that he’s relatively untested at the KHL level (on a competitive team).  He’s coming off a terrific VHL season where he showed he’s too good for that league and I think there’s at least a strong-side platoon option if he actually gets the opportunity to develop.  I’m a little less certain that he’s going to get that chance, however.

Sawyer was one of two players who moved up 11 spots, going from 23rd overall to 12th.  There was a lot of progression from his freshman to sophomore year at Providence, showing that he has enough of an offensive game to have a realistic shot at contributing.  Add that to the fact he plays with a fair bit of grit and you have an intriguing middle-six prospect.

The other who jumped up 11 spots was Mittelstadt, going from 31st to 20th.  Seventh-round picks don’t typically get signed but he has already done so, while impressing in a limited stint in Laval.  I’m not sure he has a ton of overall upside but I could see him being a key piece for the Rocket for a few years while getting in some games in Montreal when injuries arise.  Having that ranked 20th in the system is a good sign for the system.

Fallers

Using the same caveat as above, here are the biggest fallers compared to the 2024-25 rankings.

The biggest faller is Mesar, who went from 11th to 26th.  Two years ago, he was coming off a disappointing junior year but the hope was that a return to the pro game could give him a spark.  Instead, he has had limited production in his first two seasons with Laval and has been scratched in the playoffs.  He has enough raw talent that a bounce-back can’t be ruled out entirely but at this point, it seems rather unlikely, dropping him into the back half of the rankings as a result.

Koivu is the next biggest dropper, more by circumstance than anything else.  He went from 18th to 30th.  I still feel he has a bit of a chance to turn things around but he didn’t impress a lot in his limited action against players his own age.  I’m worried his development is being sacrificed for short-term gain by having him play a limited role in Finland’s top league.  A bounce-back could have him closer to the top 20 a year from now, though.

Then there’s Khanin, the only other double-digit slipper from two years ago; he went from 35th to 46th.  Some of that is Montreal’s prospect pool getting deeper but he simply hasn’t progressed since being drafted.  A late-round pick with some offensive upside who is now struggling to produce offensively against lower-level competition is someone whose stock has basically bottomed out.

General System Thoughts

Considering who the Habs have graduated in recent years (Ivan Demidov, Lane Hutson, Jakub Dobes, and Oliver Kapanen, plus trading Logan Mailloux), the fact that there’s this much top-end depth in the system is promising.  (And that’s not even mentioning trading two first-round picks for Noah Dobson.)  It’s hard to see them back-filling with higher-quality youngsters for much longer as the team ideally gets more established atop the East but they’re starting from a great spot.

There’s also impressive depth that’s spaced out well.  Most of the unsigned prospects (outside of the top two) are still a couple of years away from signing, making for a somewhat steady pipeline of prospects over the next several seasons.  That should allow for a bit of roster turnover with more expensive role players being replaced by cheaper prospects.  The value in that will be affording the core as long as possible, including second contracts for players like Hage.

We’ve seen the Habs largely be quiet in free agency in recent years, preferring to build from within.  Between the contracts already in place and this prospect pool, they appear to be well-positioned to continue that trend for the foreseeable future.

Prospect Position Rankings

Goalies
Left-Shot Defencemen
Right-Shot Defencemen
Left-Shot Wingers
Right-Shot Wingers
Centres