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The Dominoes Keep Falling into Place and the Pressure is Rising |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Tarasenko, O’Reilly and now Meier have all changed postcodes well in advance of the trade deadline, there are still 4 days to go as I write these lines and with the biggest offensive names already off the board, perhaps the GMs who have struck out on those will come knocking on Kent Hughes’ door. Of course, every single GM wants to improve his team and would like to do it with the big names, the ones that look like a sure bet, but there’s only a limited amount of those players and once they’re gone, it’s time to look to plan B, C or even D if someone’s desperate enough.
Clearly, nothing is ideal for the Canadiens this trade deadline, if Hughes had his way, his most marketable assets would be healthy, both Sean Monahan and Joel Edmundson would have played enough to generate a hefty return, but that’s not the case. Still, with dominoes falling well in advance of Friday’s deadline, both may become possible alternative plans, deals could happen with the return being conditional to the amount of games they’ll play. It’s not ideal for the buyer, but when you miss out on the healthy players, you’ve got to make do with what’s left.
The other option could also be that the interest in Josh Anderson goes up with so many forwards being with their new teams already and judging by the return the Lightning got last night for Tanner Jeannot (a 25 year-old, 6’3’’, 208 pounds left winger who’s got 14 points on the season), Anderson could bring a nice return. Andy is taller, bigger and he’s got 23 points this season including 17 goals. His downside is that he is signed for 4 more years at a $5.5 M cap hit and that he’s 3 years older than Jeannot, but still, desperate times call for desperate measures, don’t they?
I doubt the shelves will ever get empty enough to justify getting any kind of interesting return for the likes of Jonathan Drouin or Mike Hoffman (especially with another year to go on his contract at $4.5 M), but Kent Hughes might have another trick up his sleeve. After all, he was able to move Evgenii Dadonov for an intriguing little project. There’s no guarantee that Gurianov will pay off as a gamble, but between that and a deep draft pick, I’d rather take a chance on the guy who’s already made the NHL, especially with the cupboard already full to the brim with picks.
Whether the Canadiens manage to get involved in more trades remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure, there will be plenty of action to watch league wide in the next 4 days. So for now, sit back and watch desperation reach new heights for the contenders who have yet to manage to improve their team, in HuGo we trust.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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