One hundred and ten years ago, Lt.-Col. John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields
after the funeral of a close friend who had died in battle in the First
World War. More than 30 years later, Montreal Canadiens GM Frank Selke
absconded the famous line, “To you from failing hands we throw the
torch. Be yours to hold it high.” And for almost 75 years, that line has
greeted Canadiens players as they’ve entered the team’s dressing room,
either in the Forum or the Bell Centre. It’s there to remind them of the
greatness that has preceded them and their responsibility to uphold the
standard that was established by the franchise’s icons.
Generations
of players have done their parts, but woo-boy there have been some
rough years lately. With a few notable exceptions, young Canadiens
players have spent the better part of the past 20 years or so handling
the torch like it was a book of matches from a Crescent Street strip
club that someone had inadvertently set on fire. There have been some
hits, lots of misses and a team that has been among the top 20 in the
NHL only once in the past five years. Of course, they finished 18th that
year and made it to the Stanley Cup final, so there’s that.
Canadiens
GM Kent Hughes remembers the glory days. Larry Robinson’s son played
minor hockey with him in Beaconsfield, and Jacques Lemaire’s kid played
with Hughes’ younger brother, Ryan. And what the Canadiens are building
right now is not the 1970s dynasty that Hughes and his brother idolized,
but it’s something. Lane Hutson, Kaiden Guhle and David Reinbacher will
never be confused with Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe, but
they’re really good. Nick Suzuki probably isn’t Lemaire, but work with
us. Cole Caufield could stand in for Steve Shutt and Juraj Slafkovsky or
Michael Hage for Pete Mahovlich. Nobody is saying Owen Beck and Oliver
Kapanen are the next Bob Gainey and Doug Jarvis, but let’s use our
imaginations here. Arber Xhekaj as Pierre Bouchard? Sure. (Just keep him
away from the modern-day Stan Jonathan.) People are saying great things
about Jacob Fowler, the same way they did about Cayden Primeau at the
same age, but the kid is putting up Ken Dryden-like numbers at Boston
College.
And then there’s Ivan Demidov, star of YouTube and the
single-season under-20 scoring leader in KHL history. He plays right
wing. So did Guy Lafleur. So, let’s imagine the possibilities. The thing
that sports sells better than anything is hope, so let’s give this a
go. What if Demidov becomes the dynamic, lift-you-out-of-your-seat
scoring star the Canadiens have lacked for decades? And what if the rest
of them come together and hit their career peaks simultaneously? Hey,
even a poor man’s 1970s dynasty could win the Stanley Cup in today’s
parity-ravaged NHL. “I can tell you that if you made those comparisons
and you were right,” Hughes said, “you’d be talking to the happiest man
in the world.”
"His ability to move laterally suddenly is one of his calling cards."
- Kent Hughes
Which
brings us back to Demidov, who fell to the Canadiens when they were
picking fifth overall in the 2024 NHL draft and who has since emerged as
the world’s No. 1 NHL-affiliated prospect. There’s a video going around
in which Canadiens executive VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton asks
Demidov in his draft interview if the team would be crazy to pass on him
at their position, and Demidov confirms they would be. Demidov is
making them look pretty good, which is probably why the Canadiens
allowed the video to surface.
Demidov doesn’t have Lafleur’s
shirt-flapping speed – he probably doesn’t spark up a heater between
periods, either – but he’s deadly in the scoring areas. His sense of
deception is sublime, and he can make a puck find the net while
negotiating its way past multiple sets of shin pads. Nobody in KHL
history – not Kirill Kaprizov, not Matvei Michkov – has as many points
in a teenage season as Demidov has so far in 2024-25. All that is great,
but Hughes is most impressed with how Demidov has handled the situation
with his KHL team in St. Petersburg, being sat out of the lineup by
coach Roman Rotenberg, then playing sparingly early in the season. He
has figured it out, which means the Canadiens have been handed a bit of a
development gift in the tough love that Rotenberg has shown Demidov.
In
December, Hughes accompanied Canadiens head amateur scout Nick Bobrov
and special consultant Vincent Lecavalier (along with Demidov’s agent,
Dan Milstein) on a multi-pronged mission to assure Demidov that his
early-season struggles were not a concern to them and to find out from
Rotenberg what Demidov had to improve upon to get more playing time.
“To
be honest, some of the stuff they were asking him to do, as much as it
made for some frustrating times for him, it’s probably going to help his
transition to North America,” Hughes said. “With any young prospect,
before you have complete control over their development, you want them
in an environment where the things being asked of them are productive in
terms of making them better future NHL players. The ice time was not
ideal, and he couldn’t do what they were asking of him if he wasn’t
playing.”
So, fans of the Canadiens – and there are apparently a
few of them – watch the regular postings of Demidov’s most recent
exploits in a league where Josh Leivo is the leading scorer and they
wonder whether the parade is going to go the usual route down Rue
Ste-Catherine. Since Demidov’s contract with SKA expires on May 31, it’s
assumed that he’ll be in the Habs’ lineup next season. And there’s a
good chance he will be. The Laval Rocket had the best points percentage
in the AHL at the all-star break, and, hey, it’s not out of the question
that Demidov could sign with the Canadiens and join the Rocket for
their playoff run. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Both Hughes and
Milstein are loath to talk about when the NHL might see Demidov
because, well, Russia. Both will breathe a huge sigh of relief when the
young man sets foot in Montreal.
But for now, the Canadiens are
thrilled he’s turned his season around, and good things are on the
horizon. When Hughes watches Demidov play, both in person and on video,
he sees a player with a unique set of skills and the ability to control
his edges like few other players. “His ability to move laterally
suddenly is one of his calling cards,” Hughes said. “It makes him so
elusive. Ivan doesn’t skate at the high speeds Connor McDavid does, but
he cuts and moves from right to left, and the amount he covers is
significant. He can score, but he also has the ability to see plays and
make plays. He has a lot of qualities that we think are going to allow
him to be successful in the NHL.”
Hughes
waits a second or two, then adds, “And very different. Not the kind of
player you see every day.” That makes the Canadiens excited for the time
when they can start seeing him every day.
This article
appeared in our 2025 Future Watch issue. Our cover story focuses on
Ducks prospect Beckett Sennecke, who is tearing it up with the OHL's
Oshawa Generals this season. We also include features on other
exceptional NHL prospects, including: Zayne Parekh, Porter Martone,
Gavin McKenna and more. In addition, we
look at the top-10 prospects in the pipeline for each of the 32 NHL
clubs.
It's available on newsstands now, or you can get it in print for free when you subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/Free today. All subscriptions include complete access to more than 76 years of articles at The Hockey News Archive.
