Music: {allcanada} Poor drafting hobbles Habs

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks have shown over the past two National Hockey League seasons how to build a Stanley Cup champion through the entry draft.

When the Penguins won the Cup in 2009, they had five of their first-round picks in the lineup: defenceman Brooks Orpik (notes) (the No. 18 overall pick in 2000), goalie Marc-Andre Fleury (notes) (No. 1 in '03), and forwards Evgeni Malkin (notes) (No. 2 in '04), Sidney Crosby (notes) (No. 1 in '05) and Jordal Staal (No. 2 in '06).

The Penguins also had one second-round pick (defenceman Alex Goligoski (notes), No. 61 in 2004), one third-round pick (defenceman Kris Letang (notes), No. 62 in '05), one fourth-round pick (forward Tyler Kennedy (notes), No. 99 in '04), and one eighth-round pick (forward Maxime Talbot, No. 234 in '02).

When the Blackhawks won the Cup last season, they also had five first-round picks on the roster: defencemen Brent Seabrooke (No. 14 in 2003) and Cam Barker (notes) (No. 3 in '04), along with forwards Jack Skille (notes) (No. 7 in '05), Jonathan Toews (notes) (No. 3 in '06) and Patrick Kane (notes) (No. 1 in '07).

The Blackhawks also had three second-round picks (defenceman Duncan Keith (notes), No. 54 in 2002, and forwards Dave Bolland (notes), No. 32 in '04, and Bryan Bickell (notes), No. 41 in '04); one fourth-round pick (defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson (notes), No. 108 in '05); one seventh-round pick (forward Troy Brouwer (notes), No. 214 in

'04); one eighth-round pick (forward Dustin Byfuglien (notes), No. 245 in '03); and one ninth-round pick (forward Adam Burish (notes), No. 282 in '02).

That's some pretty impressive drafting.

Now, let's turn the focus to the Canadiens, who have gone 17 years -and counting -since the Stanley Cup parade took what used to be its "usual route" along Ste. Catherine St.

The Canadiens only have two of their first-round picks in the lineup this season: goaltender Carey Price (notes) (No. 5 in 2005) and forward Andrei Kostitsyn (notes) (No. 10 in '03). There are five other players on the roster who were drafted by the Canadiens: Andrei Markov (notes) (sixth round, No. 162 in 1998), Tomas Plekanec (notes) (third round, No. 71 in 2001), Maxim Lapierre (notes) (second round, No. 61 in '03), Ryan O'Byrne (notes) (third round, No. 79, in '03), and P.K. Subban (notes) (second round, No. 43, in '07).

What happened to all the other Canadiens first-round picks, you ask? That's a very good question.

After winning the Cup in 1993, general manager Serge Savard selected Saku Koivu (notes)

in the first round that June (21st overall). It has been mostly all downhill since.

Here's the list of Habs' first-round picks since Koivu: Brad Brown (1994, No. 18), Terry Ryan ('95, No. 8), Matt Higgins ('96, No. 18), Jason Ward (notes) ('97, No. 11), Eric Chouinard ('98, No. 16), Ron Hainsey (notes) (2000, No. 13), Marcel Hossa (notes) (2000, No. 16), Mike Komisarek (notes) ('01, No. 7), Alexander Perezhogin ('01, No. 25), Christopher Higgins (notes) ('02, No. 14), Kostitsyn ('03, No. 10), Kyle Chipchura (notes) ('04, No. 18), Price ('05, No. 5), David Fischer ('06, No. 20), Ryan McDonagh (notes) ('07, No. 12), Max Pacioretty (notes) ('07, No. 22), Louis Leblanc (notes) ('09, No. 18), Jarred Tinordi (notes) ('10, No. 22).

The best offensive season any of those players produced was the 53 points Kostitsyn put up in 2007-08 (26 goals, 27 assists). Last season in the NHL, there were 86 players with 53 points or more.

One of those players was Anze Kopitar (notes) of the Los Angeles Kings, a 6-foot-3, 227-pound centre who had 34-47-81 totals, giving him four straight seasons with at least 60 points. The reason I bring up Kopitar's name is because he is one of the players TSN's Bob McKenzie mentioned that the Canadiens could have selected at No. 5 instead of Price during coverage of the 2005 entry draft. Kopitar was taken by the Kings with the 11th pick.

The other names McKenzie mentioned as options instead

of Price were forward Gilbert Brule (notes), who was taken sixth overall by the Edmonton Oilers, and defenceman Marc Staal (notes), who went to the New York Rangers with the 12th pick. Last season, the 5-foot-11, 186-pound Brule posted 17-20-37 totals with the Oilers, while Staal, a 6-foot-4, 208-pounder, had 8-19-27 totals to go along with a plus-11 rating.

"These are the types of players they could have had instead of the goaltender," McKenzie said on-air immediately after the Canadiens selected Price. "But they decided to go with the goaltender, and it's an interesting pick."

McKenzie's TSN colleague Pierre McGuire added: "This is not a fit for Montreal. They have so many other needs. They are very unproven on defence. They just let go of Patrice Brisebois (notes). They don't have a big-body presence down the middle at centre …

"I don't know about this fit at all with Montreal. They had so many other needs."

There are a lot of reasons why the Canadiens haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1993, but the entry draft might be the biggest one.