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In Hainsight: Underwhelming Trade Deadline and Loss |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
After the trade deadline had passed, the same old Canadiens took on the Ducks in Anaheim last night in the third game of a 4 match-ups road trip. Injured in the last game, Justin Barron wasn’t in the line-up which allowed waiver pick-up Chris Tierney to come back to center the 4th line. The game lacked rhythm and was in all honesty nothing to write home about aside from the fact that Jonathan Drouin finally managed to score his first goal of the season, Nick Suzuki scored his 21st and Kaiden Guhle momentarily left the game with what looked like a shoulder injury though he was back for the 2nd period. In the end, the Ducks took this one 3-2 which is a “good loss” for the Canadiens, all things considered.
After the game, Guhle was receiving treatment and wasn’t available to speak to the media, unlike Joel Edmundson and Jonathan Drouin who both said they were glad to still be part of the team. According to Edmundson, Hughes had spoken to both himself and Josh Anderson about a month ago to tell them that a trade was possible, which is understandably unnerving, the alternate captain had only slept an hour the night before.
Turns out Edmundson had nothing to worry about, ultimately his health concerns meant the Habs didn’t receive the kind of offer they needed to be willing to part with the veteran’s leadership. The Canadiens weren’t very active yesterday but it’s not that they didn’t want to be, still they had to settle for defenseman Frédéric Allard from the Kings in return for Nate Schnarr to bolster the blue line in Laval and they got a 5th round pick in 2024 and defenseman Tony Sund for acting as broker in the Nick Bonino deal involving the Sharks and the Penguins. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with Sund, he was undrafted and signed a contract as a free agent with the Sharks in May 2019, but he’s never played in the NHL. This year, he played in Rogle BK in the Swedish Hockey League and was Habs prospect Adam Engstrom’s defense partner.
Kent Hughes spoke to the media after the deadline had come and gone and admitted that he would have liked to make one or two more deals, but there just wasn’t any deals on the table that would have helped him in the pursuit of his goal, build a winning team in the long term. He could have flipped Edmundson, but the return available meant that he decided his leadership was more valuable and he fully understood how his health issues affected his market value, just like Sean Monahan’s. The general manager stated that Monahan had suffered another injury during his rehab which explained his prolonged absence and he’s not sure if he’ll be able to come back before the end of the season. When asked if it was a possibility the Habs would sign Monahan to an extension, he said that it was too early to talk about this summer, but admitted that when healthy the veteran was very useful to the team.
In the end, there was no market for Jonathan Drouin who has struggled with injuries in the last couple of years and who’s big cap hit probably prevented any team from gambling on him. As for players with term, like Anderson and Hoffman, it’s not all that surprising that they stayed put, those kind of contracts are easier to move in the Summer when teams are allowed to go above the cap. Don’t get any ideas about Hoffman though, dead wood remains deadwood whatever the season.
Hughes confirmed that he would have liked to move Barron back to the Rocket on paper to allow him to play in the AHL playoffs but that he couldn’t do it because of his injuries, so only Harvey-Pinard and Jesse Ylonen will be available to join Jean-François Houle’s men when the time comes. As for Slafkovsky and Guhle, given the injuries, the team opted not to take any risk and let them rest. In other words, don’t expect Slafkovsky to get back in the line-up before the end of the season or to go to the World Championships, it’s not happening.
In the end, the trade deadline might have been underwhelming for Habs fans, but Hughes was pretty much handcuffed by the fact that his most marketable assets were injured and at least, he didn’t make a trade just to make a trade. He resisted the temptation to act as broker for other teams by taking on bad veteran contracts which would have been much worse as it would have slowed down the rebuild. Unlike last year, Hughes didn’t have prime produce on offer and with so many sellers, only the best crops found takers.
The Canadiens will have a rare Saturday night off tonight and will close out their road trip tomorrow night with a 6:00 PM game against the Golden Knights.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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