Stu Cowan: What if the Canadiens had drafted Chris Kreider in 2009? (2024)

Imagine if the Canadiens had drafted Chris Kreider.

The 2009 NHL Draft was held at the Bell Centre and with the 18th overall pick former Canadiens GM Bob Gainey selected hometown boy Louis Leblanc.

With the next pick, the New York Rangers took Kreider.

Leblanc would only play 50 games with the Canadiens, posting 5-5-10 totals. Kreider has played in 815 regular-season games with the Rangers, posting 304-248-552 totals. He has also played in 118 career playoff games with the Rangers, posting 47-27-74 totals.

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At age 33, Kreider is showing no signs of slowing down. He scored 39 goals this season after scoring 36 the previous season and a career-high 52 the season before that. In 11 playoff games this season, Kreider has 7-3-10 totals. The 6-foot-3, 233-pound left-winger had a natural hat trick in the third period of Game 6 of the second-round series against the Carolina Hurricanes as the Rangers came back from a 3-1 deficit to win the game 5-3 and advance to the Eastern Conference final against the Florida Panthers.

The Panthers won Game 1 of the conference final by a 3-0 score Wednesday night with Game 2 slated for Friday in New York (8 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports).

“He put us on his back,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette told reporters in Raleigh, N.C., when asked about Kreider following his hat trick that eliminated the Hurricanes. “At the end of the day, we needed to score goals, and this is what he does. This is what he did tonight.

“He’s one of the leaders on the team for a reason,” Laviolette added. “He’s the elder statesman on the team, one of them. We needed that from him.”

Kreider is the type of player the Canadiens needed back in 2009 — and the type they still need today.

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Gainey was hoping to fill a need by acquiring a big centre at the 2009 draft, but wasn’t able to make a trade. With fans at the Bell Centre chanting Leblanc’s name as the Canadiens took the stage to announce their 18th overall pick, Trevor Timmins — the director of player personnel at the time — announced the pick and the fans roared their approval.

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Timmins said after the pick that the fans didn’t influence the Canadiens’ decision to take Leblanc, noting the Pointe-Claire native “was the next player on our list.”

Leblanc, a centre, was listed as 6-feet and 178 pounds at the draft and was coming off a season in which he had 28-31-59 totals in 60 games with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers. Kreider was coming off a season in which he had 33-23-56 totals in 26 games at the Phillips Academy Andover prep school in Massachusetts.

There are Canadiens fans who will never forgive Kreider for crashing into goalie Carey Price in Game 1 of the 2014 Eastern Conference final at the Bell Centre while going hard to the net. No penalty was called on the play, in which Price injured his right knee and was sidelined for the rest of the series. The Canadiens eventually lost the series in six games with Dustin Tokarski taking over in goal.

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Michel Therrien, the Canadiens head coach at the time, described the collision with Price as “reckless” on Kreider’s part. Brandon Prust, Price’s teammate at the time, said Kreider crashed into the goalie “accidentally on purpose.” Alain Vigneault, the Rangers head coach, called the collision a “hockey play.”

Price would come back the next season and have the best performance of his career, posting a 44-16-6 record, a 1.96 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP and the Vézina Trophy as the best goalie. The Canadiens finished second in the Eastern Conference that season with 110 points — three behind the Rangers — before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the playoffs.

Price continued to have knee problems after the Kreider collision. The goalie wasn’t able to fully recover from knee surgery in the summer of 2021, which put an end to his career. Price still has two more seasons remaining on his eight-year, US$84-million contract, but the 36-year-old will remain on long-term injured reserve, meaning his US$10.5 million salary-cap hit won’t count against the Canadiens’ team cap.

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Kreider, now in his 12th year with the Rangers, still has two more seasons remaining on his seven-year, US$45.5-million contract with an annual salary-cap hit of US$6.5 million. His 304 goals rank third on the Rangers’ all-time list behind Hall of Famers Rod Gilbert (406) and Jean Ratelle (336). Kreider’s 47 career playoff goals are the most in Rangers history, 13 ahead of Gilbert.

“There’s a reason why he’s been here his whole career,” the Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad told reporters in Raleigh after Kreider had his hat-trick in Game 6 against the Hurricanes.. “He’s done something right. Just the way he’s been on the ice, off the ice, the way he prepares himself, the way he is as a teammate.

“He means a lot to the team,” Zibanejad added. “He means a lot to me and this organization and this city.”

Kreider could have meant a lot to Montreal.

scowan@postmedia.com

x.com/StuCowan1

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