AHL Report

by Dan Kramer, Staff Writer, AllHabs.net MONTREAL, QC — Over the past week and a half, Montreal Canadiens prospects Alex Galchenyuk and Charles Hudon have attended training camps for Team USA and...

The Montreal Canadiens' organization will be competing for a Cup during the 2012-2013 season. Am I a crazy "homer" of a Habs fan? Have I been drinking the Kool-Aid on the Brandon Prust and Francis Bouillon signings?

If you listen to 2012 third overall selection Alex Galchenyuk in a formal interview setting, or watch his incredible skills on the ice, it is very easy to forget that beneath it all, he is still just an 18-year-old kid. It is his off-ice motivation and on-ice dominance that have some thinking the Canadiens should consider rushing him straight to the NHL as early as this Fall.

Funny that about two weeks back, the Canadiens hosted over 30 prospects in Brossard, including the team's first selection from each of the last four NHL Entry Drafts, and nary a fan or member of the media was at the rink to watch them. And yet, the group of just 14 - much younger and thus less experienced/proven - presently taking part in the second half of the club's Development Camp is drawing a packed house. Let's call it the Alex Galchenyuk effect.

Ultimately, the Edmonton Oilers would go down as the team that Failed for Nail this past season, but it appears that fans of the Montreal Canadiens are unbothered by this, satisfied that their team had its own secret motto, "Suck for Galchenyuk"...

Ordinarily, the second Habs development camp of the summer is a quiet little affair. From the outset though, I knew today would be different. I arrived two and a half hours before the players were to step on the ice, and I wasn't alone.