Islanders pick Victor Eklund, Kashawn Aitcheson as they beef up roster in NHL draft first round
The Islanders kept on adding in the NHL draft's first round.
After the Noah Dobson trade to the Canadiens became official, the Islanders landed Swedish winger Victor Eklund at No. 16 and Canadian defenseman Kashawn Aitcheson at No. 17 on Friday night.
Victor Eklund #18 of Team Sweden skates in the second period against Team Finland of the semifinal match during the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Centre on January 4, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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Kashawn Aitcheson #77 of Team CHL gets ready to pass the puck during CHL USA Prospects game between USA and CHL at Canada Life Place on November 26, 2024 in London, Ontario, Canada.
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It gave the Islanders three picks in the first round after they selected blue liner Matthew Schaefer with the first overall pick.
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New York Times
44 minutes ago
- New York Times
What the Noah Dobson acquisition means for what the Canadiens are hoping to accomplish
MONTREAL — Team-building in the NHL is a complicated process, one mired with pitfalls and obstacles and plans that go awry. There are numerous examples of teams that went through a rebuilding process that never came out the other side, or at least haven't yet. Even two of the biggest rebuild success stories, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers, have not yet claimed the ultimate prize despite drafting generational players to build around. Advertisement The Montreal Canadiens don't have generational players. They have not even come close to sniffing at that prize. But Friday's acquisition of defenceman Noah Dobson from the New York Islanders signals a seismic shift in how the Canadiens are approaching their rebuild. They have firmly exited a rebuild and entered a team-building phase, which is one step closer to entering a contending phase. In Dobson, the Canadiens believe they have acquired not only a crucial piece of their eventual championship puzzle, but also a player who shares that belief that there is in fact a championship puzzle being put together here. Dobson's fit as a player in that puzzle is almost less important than Dobson's belief in that puzzle, because his belief came from the outside, from an interested observer wondering where to continue his career. As a legitimate top-pairing, puck-moving, right-shot defenceman, Dobson would have been a coveted piece across the league. But what the Canadiens are building excited him and he wanted in, and that should be exciting to Canadiens fans who have been searching for a light in the tunnel of this rebuild. This sign-and-trade with the Islanders, this decision by Dobson to eagerly jump in on what is happening in Montreal, should serve as that light. 'Without hesitation, it was a no-brainer for me,' Dobson, 25, said of the decision to sign an eight-year contract worth $9.5 million a year to commit his prime years to the Canadiens. 'Just the opportunity to be part of the Montreal Canadiens, it's an honour. It's the best hockey market in the world. The fans are incredible. I love playing at the Bell Centre. 'And then just also the group of players they have already, the talent they have on the team and what they've been building. I'm just super excited to join that group and add to it, and I'm excited about what we can do down the road here in the future.' Advertisement It is the last part that is vital to what this means for the Canadiens and where they are in their rebuild, because it has been ages since a player in his prime felt that way about this team. And Dobson got that sense through word of mouth. He played for Team Canada in the most recent World Championships with Canadiens defenceman Mike Matheson and has a history with Nick Suzuki from the 2019 Canadian world juniors team. 'I think Martin St. Louis has a great reputation throughout the league as a coach and a person,' Dobson said. 'What I heard as a group, they enjoy coming to the rink every day. It's a fun group, a tight-knit group. They've got a great mix of lots of young kids and veterans as well. Everyone just enjoys being together as a group and they have a great time. They try and make it fun and make it exciting to go to the rink every day. 'As a player, that's all you can ask for.' And since Dobson feels that way, Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes is hopeful it will lead to more players feeling that way. 'I think it also probably makes it a more attractive place to play for a prospective forward, whether that's this year or in the future,' Hughes said late Friday night. 'We've talked about getting players who could help out in our top-six, but if we could have a team that we hope to have, similar to Florida where they're rolling two real good lines – well, they have three – but both lines would want a puck-moving D out there to get them pucks and moving. 'So I think in that regard, when the puzzle's complete, we're going to have more puck-movers to move through our lineup.' Hughes says he has spent the last three weeks on the phone 'nearly every waking hour' trying to improve his team. The Canadiens continue to say they are not desperate to improve right away, that they are not willing to do anything stupid, but there was definitely pressure on the organization to build on its first playoff berth of this rebuild, to not take a step back, to make a tangible improvement. Advertisement This move accomplished that, in more ways than one. The first is the hockey part, that the Canadiens now have two top-end puck-moving defencemen in Dobson and Calder Trophy-winner Lane Hutson that they can deploy on two pairings, potentially having an elite puck-mover on the ice for 45 to 50 minutes a game. Even if the Canadiens don't succeed in finding a top-six forward to help their second line – and Hughes says he is still trying to do that – that alone should improve the offensive performance of the forwards the Canadiens already have. 'I think if you look at how we play, we try to deny pucks a lot and deny ice and we send a lot of D back, if their D partner's up holding the blue line and they're going back to retrieve,' Hughes said. 'His ability to retrieve pucks and spring the offence for us was a big piece. We've seen how Lane's done that for us this year. We're confident. We did a lot of homework on (Dobson), a lot of people that have coached him.' The reason Hughes felt the need to express confidence in the research the Canadiens did on Dobson is he is coming off a down year, as he followed up a career-high 70 points last season with 39 points this season. Hughes called it an outlier, and over the course of Dobson's career, it would appear to be. But Dobson characterized it more as a learning experience, one that should now benefit the Canadiens. 'I think it was a difficult season at times as a whole, not just individually, but as a team,' Dobson said. 'We struggled to score a lot, collectively as a team, especially earlier in the year. The team dealt with a lot of injuries, a lot of moving parts moving in and out. Like any season, there's highs and lows throughout that. 'I think just taking the learning experience, dealing with, as a team and individually, struggling to score and produce and having to find ways to be effective each night when things aren't going in was something I really tried to learn from and grow and evolve.' Advertisement There is some mild risk here from a hockey perspective, considering how Dobson's season went, but it's mitigated by the three years of excellent hockey he played prior. He is a top-pair defenceman, despite how this season went, and the Canadiens paid a top-pair-defenceman price in both acquisition cost and with the contract, which is structured very favourably for Dobson. Noah Dobson 8 year $9.5M Cap Hit #Isles/#GoHabsGo sign & trade: Yr 1/2/3: 1M Base & 11M Signing BonusYr 4: 5M Base & 5M SBYr 5: 8.4M BaseYr 6/7/8: 7.2M Base Years 2-8: 14 Team No Trade Clause Rep'd by Olivier Fortier @wassermanhockey — PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) June 28, 2025 But more than the hockey fit, the signal the Dobson acquisition sends is almost of greater importance. It signals an emergence from a rebuild, and a willingness to smooth out the imperfections in the Canadiens' roster in order to build one capable of winning the Stanley Cup down the road. It's possible Dobson isn't the right player to drive that forward, but what the Canadiens believe him to be absolutely would drive that forward. And what that means is that every subsequent move will serve the same purpose. The Canadiens are in a different phase, an exciting phase in which a competitive team will continue being added to and improved incrementally with a long view of building a contender and a shorter view of continuing to build momentum. It is the first stepping stone this Canadiens administration has added that didn't require some sort of abstract projection of what an acquired asset could potentially mean if everything went right. Dobson's projection is not very abstract. 'I don't want to say everything happens in phases, but I guess we spent the early part of my time here trying to accumulate assets, which for the most part were draft picks, but there were prospects,' Hughes said. 'But once you go through that phase, I think you come to a time where you start to look at, how are we constructing a hockey team and how do we want to play and what are the players that fit that idea, that mandate. Advertisement 'This is probably a pretty significant sign on our part that, OK, we're adding a piece from the outside, we didn't draft it, and we're going to try to continue to take those next steps. I think part of it was driven by the success the team had and the desire the dressing room has to keep moving this thing forward.' The Canadiens made a significant investment in Dobson, and Dobson committed the prime of his NHL career to the Canadiens. They are both hoping for the same thing, that this marriage will result in rings. That end result is still abstract and still requires more work. But Dobson's acquisition is the first sign that work toward the desired end result has now begun.
New York Times
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Michigan State hockey received the commitment of Dryden Allen all the way back in August of 2023. The 2007-born defenseman has kept his pledge to the Spartans through the years and is nearing his arrival to East Lasning. Allen, a 6-foot-1, 190 pound left shot defenseman from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is expected to join the Spartans for the 2026-2027 season. Before that, though, he has found a new home for junior hockey. After playing in the USHL for the Dubuque Fighting Saints last season, and the Niagara Falls Canucks prior to that, he will be heading back to Canadian junior hockey, gaining a roster spot in the Ontario Hockey League. Although playing in a Canadian junior hockey league, Allen will be staying close to his future home, signing a Standard Playing Agreement with the Flint Firebirds. It will be another good year and league for his development prior to being a Spartan after this season. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Cory Linsner on X @Cory_Linsner
