The Montreal Canadiens have broken a golden rule of the NHL Draft lately. They have focused a little more on need than “best player available” at the past few drafts. The organization has sorely lacked true talent at centre for years – decades even – and they attempted to correct that in the past few years.
It led to them somewhat controversially drafting Jesperi Kotkaniemi over Brady Tkachuk or Filip Zadina in 2018. In fact, in that 2018 NHL Draft, the Canadiens had a total of 11 picks and used six of them to select natural centres.