Back at the 2013 NHL Draft, the Montreal Canadiens were coming off a trip to the conference finals and held the 25th pick. They used it on Michael McCarron, a 6'6 forward meant to bring more size and bite to a team trying to handle a heavy, hard-hitting Eastern Conference.
One spot later, the Anaheim Ducks took Shea Theodore.
That’s the decision that still invites the what-if treatment. McCarron fit the Canadiens’ thinking at the time: bigger, tougher, more physical.
He had been compared to Milan Lucic, and as a player for the U.S. National Development Team, he showed plenty of penalty minutes - more than 200 over two seasons - even if the offense never really followed.
The problem was what came after. McCarron didn’t reach the NHL until 2015, spent most of that season in the AHL, and only saw his busiest stretch with Montreal in 2016-17, when he appeared in 31 games and posted five points along with 76 hits.
Injuries and movement between the NHL and AHL kept interrupting his time with the club. He later went to the Nashville Predators in the 2019-20 season, with Laurent Dauphin coming back to Montreal.
Dauphin lasted one year in the organization before heading to Arizona.
Meanwhile, Theodore became the kind of defender Montreal could have used behind Carey Price. He reached the NHL in 2015 and by 2016-17 was spending more time in the league than in the minors.
When the expansion draft approached, the Ducks sent him to the Vegas Golden Knights rather than risk losing other players. Theodore responded with a career that included more than 40 points a season, a Stanley Cup with Las Vegas in the 2022-23 season, and an Olympic debut with Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The Canadiens’ biggest frustration from those Price years was never turning that run into a Cup, and Theodore is exactly the sort of player who makes the draft miss sting. He wasn’t built around physicality, but his skill, speed, and scoring touch could have changed the look of Montreal’s blue line and maybe helped push the team into the playoffs, with value that might have lasted well beyond the Carey Price era.
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Nick Suzuki Keeps Raising The Canadiens Ceiling Again
Nick Suzukis rise has become one of the clearest reasons the Canadiens can talk about a higher ceiling with a straight face. After a career-best season that saw him finish with 101 points and capture the Frank J. Selke Trophy, the Montreal captain has moved beyond promising centerpiece and into the category of player who can tilt the direction of a franchise. The steady climb in his game has been the kind of progression teams spend years hoping to find, and it has given Montreal a true driver in the middle of its lineup.
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Canadiens Face A Quiet Roster Squeeze That Could Reshape Next Season
The Canadiens have spent much of the summer locking in pieces of their core, but the quieter challenge now is figuring out what the next version of the roster is supposed to look like. Eight players are set to hit free agency after the season, and while Montreal has some obvious names it would like to keep around, the picture is already getting complicated enough that the front office has to balance continuity, cost and timing all at once.
Oliver Kapanen, Alex Newhook and Jayden Struble look positioned to be part of the conversation going forward, but the list of possible departures is where the real pressure starts to build. Samuel Montembeault, Kirby Dach, Josh Anderson, Phillip Danault and Alexandre Carrier could all be moving into what amounts to a final year in Montreal, and with contract decisions and trade possibilities both hanging over the group, the Canadiens may end up reshaping more than just the bottom of the roster before next season arrives. [Read more 🡒]