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With the NHL Draft slated for this weekend there will be a lot of talk about teams — including the Canadiens — building through the draft.

The Canadiens — heading into their third full season of a rebuild under Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, and general manager Kent Hughes — hold 12 picks heading into the draft, which starts with the first round Friday night at The Sphere in Las Vegas (7 p.m., SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690, 98.5 FM), followed by rounds 2-7 on Saturday (11:30 a.m., SN, SN1, TSN 690).

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Since taking over from former GM Marc Bergevin, Hughes has made 20 picks at the last two drafts, including forward Juraj Slafkovsky with the No. 1 pick in 2022 and defenceman David Reinbacher with the No. 5 pick last year. Hughes has also traded two first-round picks — the No. 13 pick in 2022 to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Kirby Dach and the No. 31 pick last year to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Alex Newhook — in an effort to speed up the rebuilding process.

The Canadiens hold two first-round picks again this year — No. 5 and No. 26 — and it would be surprising if Hughes doesn’t trade the latter pick for a third straight year.

For those who might criticize Hughes for trading late first-round picks, consider that the Florida Panthers just won the Stanley Cup with only three players they drafted on their 22-man playoff roster. Those three players were high first-round picks: defenceman Aaron Ekblad (No. 1 in 2014), forward and captain Aleksander Barkov (No. 2 in 2013) and forward Anton Lundell (No. 12 in 2020).

Eight of the players on the Panthers roster were acquired in trades: forwards Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Vladimir Tarasenko, Steven Lorentz, Eetu Luostarinen and Kyle Okposo, along with defenceman Brandon Montour.

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Ten players were acquired through free agency: forwards Nick Cousins, Ryan Lomberg, Evan Rodrigues, Kevin Stenlund and Carter Verhaeghe; defencemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dmitri Kulikov and Niko Mikkola; and goalies Sergei Bobrovsky and Anton Stolarz. One Panthers player, defenceman Gustav Forsling, was claimed off waivers.

The Panthers don’t have a first-round pick this year after trading it to the Philadelphia Flyers on March 19, 2022 in exchange for Claude Giroux, who left for the Ottawa Senators four months later as a free agent after Florida lost in the second round of the playoffs.

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This will mark the third straight season the Panthers don’t have a first-round pick. They traded their first-round pick in 2023 (31st overall) to the Canadiens in exchange for Ben Chiarot three days before acquiring Giroux. The Canadiens later sent that pick to the Avalanche as part of the Newhook deal and Chiarot signed with the Detroit Red Wings as a free agent four months after being acquired by the Panthers. The Panthers also don’t have a second-round pick this year, just like they didn’t in 2022.

The last player the Panthers selected in the first round of the draft was forward Matthew Samoskevich, taken 24th overall in 2021. Samoskevich had no points in seven regular-season games with the Panthers this season and had 22-32-54 totals in 62 games with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers.

The Panthers don’t have a first-round pick next year, either, which was dealt to Calgary as part of the blockbuster trade on July 22, 2022 that landed Tkachuk and also sent Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar and Cole Schwindt to the Flames. Tkachuk has become a superstar with the Panthers, posting 66-131-197 totals over the last two seasons. Huberdeau has struggled in Calgary with 27-80-107 totals since the trade after posting 30-85-115 totals during his final season in Florida.

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There’s no doubt Huberdeau misses the Florida sunshine. Who wouldn’t?

This is going to be a very interesting and busy offseason for Panthers GM Bill Zito, who won’t have much time to celebrate winning the Stanley Cup. Eleven Panthers players can become unrestricted free agents on July 1: forwards Reinhart, Tarasenko, Lorentz, Okposo, Montour, Cousins, Lomberg and Stenlund; defencemen Ekman-Larsson and Kulikov; and goalie Stolarz.

Zito has quite a few things working in his favour when it comes to keeping the free agents he wants and acquiring new ones. There’s the fact he now has a championship team, a very respected coach in Paul Maurice and (a biggie) there is no state income tax in Florida on those multimillion-dollar contracts. There’s also the sunshine that Huberdeau obviously misses and a brand-new, state-of-the art practice facility that the Panthers opened this season in Fort Lauderdale.

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The practice facility, which cost more than US$65 million to build, includes two rinks, a team store and a restaurant. The Panthers hired a full-time chef for players at the facility, which includes a players’ lounge, an outdoor patio with barbecues, outdoor Pickleball courts and a state-of-the art indoor gym with huge windows.

Since most of the Panthers players live in and around Fort Lauderdale and get around on golf carts, there is also a golf-cart parking lot at the practice facility.

That sure beats driving over the Champlain Bridge during a January snowstorm for Canadiens players getting to their practice facility in Brossard. For Huberdeau, it certainly beats driving in a Calgary winter to the outdated Saddledome.

Did I mention there’s no state income tax in Florida?

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