The Montreal Canadiens used their second first-round pick to select a player with a longer-term projection, and that was a trend that carried through the entirely of the second day of selections. They took Aatos Koivu with their first pick of the day in the third round, and a few picks later selected Logan Sawyer, a forward who won’t even begin his college career until the fall of 2025.
Birthplace: Orangeville, Ontario
Date of birth: May 6, 2006
Shoots: Left
Position: Left Wing
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 174 lbs.
Team: Brooks Bandits (BCHL)
A young prospect in the class with a May birthday, Sawyer played his draft season with the Brooks Bandits, a Junior A team that switched from the AJHL to the BCHL mid-season. He had an excellent start to the year with 59 points in 39 games, and still finished near a point per game when a move into the BCHL improved the competition level.
He has enjoyed offensive success throughout his formative years, often around the goal-per-game mark as a teenager, This season was a rare one of him finishing with more assists than goals, perhaps a sign of his game expanding.
A high-energy game has him constantly seeking the puck, but not just mindlessly chasing it around the rink. He is a smart player who reads the game well, and puts himself in good spots to win battles. He can carry his pace throughout the game, becoming a real nuisance for defenders as they fatigue toward the end of the 60 minutes.
A poor skating stride means a lot of his energy gets wasted, not used to propel him around the ice in an efficient fashion. It’s one of the areas of his game that needs work to see him continue on a trajectory to becoming an NHL player. He is able to compensate for his reduced pace by shifting gears on the ice rather than just flying around at top speed like many energy prospects. To use a pitching analogy, his fastball may only be 90 miles per hour, but that can be effective with a change-up in the 70s. A defender can never quite be sure how Sawyer is going to attack, and therefore can’t just use a higher speed to cut him off.
With those shifts in speed, he’s a good transition player, getting zone entries despite not being a particularly strong stick-handler, an area where Montreal’s day-two picks differ from those of the first round. He can’t beat defenders one-on-one like Ivan Demidov and Michael Hage, relying on his pace shifts and a long reach to get him a bit of space to work in.
He has good vision and awareness to follow the movements of his teammates and set them up with quick passes, preferring give-and-goes to get around opponents when he can’t do the work himself. He also understand where he needs to be to keep passing lanes open, and helps create his own offence by making himself easy to find. Sometimes what he sees on the playmaking side is too ambitious, however, trying to hit the stick of a teammate through several opposing bodies, and those plays rarely work for him. He will learn as he gains more experience which plays tend to work and which need to be removed from his list of potential plays.
To really push his offensive game to the next level, he will need to work on his hand skills. Right now, most of his plays involve flinging the puck from the end of his stick at full extension, which only works in space. At higher levels, defenders won’t be so easily shaken by a sudden burst in speed and will be using their sticks more effectively to poke the puck away. Even at the NCAA level a year from now, he could be frustrated by the reduced rate at which his current plays connect.
Rankings
Elite Prospects: #122
McKeen’s: #119
NHL Central Scouting: #114 (North American skaters)
Corey Pronman (The Athletic): #112
Scott Wheeler (The Athletic): #2
The Canadiens are prepared to wait for him to figure those things out, as he may not be ready to join the professional ranks until the 2029-30 season. The scouting team likes the work ethic and potential, and also the fact that he has a 6’1″ frame to build upon over the next half-decade. The Canadiens have their NHL top six nearly set for the long-term and could afford to take some flyers on players with some potential to push for those spots in the future.
Sawyer already has a high floor thanks to his combination of energy and intelligence, which could see him claim a spot on an NHL team on its own. The limits on his rise up the lines will be the quality of his offensive play, and whether he can develop his puck-handling skills enough to keep the goals coming as his level of competition increases.
