After picking Finnish center Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the third overall pick on Friday night, the Montreal Canadiens continued to add depth up the middle during the NHL draft’s second day.
Overall, the Canadiens added another six centremen to their ranks. In the second round, they took Swede Jacob Olofsson while adding Canadian Cameron Hills in the third.
In the later rounds, they selected Allan McShane of Barrie, ON, Cole Fonstad, Samuel Houde and Brett Stapley.
Also selected were several wingers, including Finish-American Jesse Ylonen at thirty-fifth overall. Ylonen’s father, Juha, is an NHL veteran who spent time in Phoenix and Ottawa.
With a third-round pick, they selected Jack Gorniak, another winger.
Russian defenceman Alexander Romanov was taken at thirty-eighth overall and another defenceman, Jordan Harris, was taken at seventy-first.
The Habs went into Saturday with four second round picks, but traded their final one, the sixty-second overall, to Edmonton in exchange for picks 71 and 133.
With the draft completed, the hockey world’s attention will turn to the trade market, which should heat up in the leadup to the start of free agency on July 1.
