3 Trade Recommendations For Montreal Canadiens
After a 6-3 loss to the Washington Capitals last night where they were absolutely dominated from start to finish, the Montreal Canadiens need to start making moves now. They are not the team that made a run at the Stanley Cup last year. Losing captain Shea Weber, defensive center Philip Danault and not having starting goalie Carey Price right now is proving to be just too much for this team to lose and still hang on.
While this is all hypothetical and armchair GM recommendations, here are 4 trades we believe the Habs should make to attempt to save this franchise from becoming even more of a laughing stock.
#1: The Colorado Avalanche are a team that is in 'WIN NOW' mode, the days of them being full of cap space and quickly coming to a close and they need to strike while they have the chance. Mackinnon is up in 2 years, Burakovsky, Kadri & Nichushkin all need new contracts this year, which guaranteed will be getting raises & they dont have a starting goalie signed past this season. So that cap space is going to be filled up quick. Which is why I believe the Montreal Canadiens should trade Jonathan Drouin retaining 50% salary to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Bowen Byram. The Avalanche are already a loaded unit on defence, led by superstar Cale Makar, and adding Drouin who created magic with Mackinnon back in Juniors will added some additional scoring depth to be able to spread out the likes of Mackinnon, Landeskog & Rantanen.
#2: Jeff Petry showed last season that as he goes, so do the Habs. Petry put up stellar numbers scoring 12 goals 42 points in 55 games. Thats on pace for a 63 point season over 82.
Another team who could use the help and is in a window where they need to win very soon are the Winnipeg Jets. So my recommendation for the Habs is to trade Jeff Petry (retaining 30% salary) to the Winnipeg jets, along with their 2022 2nd round pick to the Jets in exchange for Cole Perfetti. Perfetti being a natural center is already currently behind Scheifele and Pierre-Luc Dubois in the depth chart and I believe they can spare to lose him in exchange for becoming better defensively. But this trade would not be possible just the 2 of them because of cap situations, so Dylan Demelo would need to be added to the trade from the Jets. The Habs would also be taking on the contract of Bryan Little who is likely to never play again.
#3: My final recommendation would be to make a trade with a team they are most likely not a fan of right now ... the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa Bay has one of the best defence cores in the league, starting with arguably the best defenceman in the league Victor Hedman. If he is batman, then McDonagh is definitely Robin. Add in Canadiens legend Mikhail Sergachev & Erik Cernak, they have probably the best top 4 in the league. And as we all know, the Lightning love to keep those players fresh on the LTIR until playoffs, and currently with Kucherov on LTIR, again ... and Point on IR, they could use some scoring depth. The trade I recommend making is trading Tyler Toffoli who scored 28 goals in 52 games last season, 2x 2022 3rd round picks in exchange for Cal Foote & the contract of Brent Seabrook who just like the last trade, will never play again.
This trade makes sense for the Lightning now, and in the future as Ondrej Palat is a free agent at the end of this season and will definitely be getting a raise from his current contract, which the Lightning cannot afford, so Toffoli becomes a cheaper replacement for Palat.
So while these trades do not make the Habs a better team immediately, they bring in 3 young potential stars to help them in the future.
But what are we kidding, Bergevin is more likely to trade Suzuki & Caufield for Sergei Bobrovsky or something.
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