Marc Dumont
It’s been a dream season for Montreal Canadiens prospect Bryce Pickford, culminating with one of the most impressive awards in Junior Hockey, among several others.
With 45 goals and 38 assists in 55 games, the defenceman was easily among the most encouraging prospects in the CHL. Not only did he finish with the most goals among all WHL defencemen, by a rather wide margin (+14), but he also managed to finish second overall in goals, trailing only forward Cameron Schmidt, who scored six more goals, but took 17 additional games to pass Pickford.
Simply put, it was the type of season that rockets a young player up a team’s prospect pool, and once we run our yearly Montreal Canadiens prospect rankings, as voted on by Habs fans, he’s surely to finish higher than his rank last season, which was seventh.
Given his jaw-dropping numbers, Pickford was named the Top Defenceman in the WHL, not to mention was added to the WHL’s First All-Star Team.
He would go on to capture the WHL’s Player of the Year Award, the first Canadiens draft pick to do so since Doug Wicknehheiser in 1980, following a ridiculous season that saw him produce 170 points.
The final feather in Pickford’s cap came in the form of the ultimate individual award for a blueliner in the Canadian Hockey League, the Defenceman of the Year award, last won by a Canadiens prospect in 1990, Patrice Brisebois.
Pickford Injured
But now we have some information that somehow manages to make his season even more impressive.
According to Scott Wheeler, Pickford was playing with an injury, and may require surgery to fix an issue in his shoulder. This means that Pickford produced those unbelievable numbers while he wasn’t at 100%.
Not sure if either of these are out there already but a couple of notable prospect injury updates:
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) June 15, 2026
– Sounds like Bryce Pickford (MTL) will be having offseason shoulder surgery. Played through it this year.
– Told Landon DuPont (2027) played through a high ankle sprain at the Mem…
Of course, we don’t know exactly how bad the situation was, or still is, but the fact that he played through it gives us some evidence that it wasn’t a problem that prevented him from playing, but rather, was a lingering issue that would have to be fixed at some point. Shoulders are very tricky, and they have the greatest range of motion on the body, which leads to rather long recovery times when surgery is involved.
Either way, it was an excellent, surprising, and confidence-boosting season for one of the most exciting young members of the Canadiens organization.
