For almost 20 years, Trevor Timmins was the directing mind behind the Montreal Canadiens’ draft picks, but when Geoff Molson decided to clean house in 2021, he got his marching orders along with Marc Bergevin and Paul Wilson. It didn’t take long for him to find a new job, however, and in 2022, he was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets as an assistant to the director of amateur scouting, Ville Sirén.
On Thursday, Columbus announced that Sirén had been reassigned as director of European scouting and that Timmins would now be the director of amateur scouting. It’s been a few years since the Jackets hit a home run at the draft, and while Adam Fantilli was a nice selection in 2023, the decision to draft Cayden Lindstrom fourth overall in 2024, just before Ivan Demidov, was a grave mistake. Back then, there were doubts about Lindstrom’s health and more specifically about back issues, and since then, he has played four playoff games with the Medicine Hat Tigers in 2024-25 and 31 games in the Big 10 with the University of Michigan last season, where he could only muster 10 points.
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Timmins will find himself in a role he knows very well, having worn the director of amateur scouting hat with the Canadiens, and it will be interesting to see if he does better in Ohio than he did in Montreal. Back in 2006, he was behind the Habs’ decision to draft David Fischer 20th overall while the Philadelphia Flyers claimed Claude Giroux 22nd overall. Then, in 2018, he orchestrated the selection of Jesperi Kotkaniemi third overall, leaving Brady Tkachuk on the board for the Ottawa Senators to take.
That’s not to say he only made bad moves; under his reign, the Canadiens did select Carey Price, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Arturri Lehkonen, P.K. Subban, Cole Caufield, Jakub Dobes, Kaiden Guhle and Oliver Kapanen to name a few, but he also selected a great defenseman who never played for the Habs, Ryan McDonagh. He was selected 12th overall in 2007, but GM Bob Gainey then famously traded him to the New York Rangers to get Scott Gomez, a trade which the Canadiens definitely lost.
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