REPORT: Montreal Canadiens to make another major TRADE before the season
It's been over 2 months now since we saw the Montreal Canadiens shock the hockey world at the 2022 NHL Entry draft, by taking Juraj Slafkovsky first overall instead of Shane Wright the projected first pick for years.
The Canadiens also made another major move that night when they traded Alex Romanov to the New York Islanders for their first round pick, and swapped that to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for former 2019 3rd overall pick Kirby Dach.
Montreal had a poor season last year after making it all the way to the Cup finals in 2021. They finished last place in the league, and if you look at the roster, it does come to much of a surprise. We did see a different team on the ice once Martin St. Louis took over as coach, but it was not enough to get this team out of last place.
The Canadiens decided that they wanted to enter a rebuild last season, and coming into this season we expected to see a lot of pieces moved out for prospects and picks. With the potential superstar Connor Bedard in the 2023 draft, many expected to see the Montreal Canadiens tank this season for that chance at a future franchise player. The problem is, they have too many top 6 players upfront.
Whether you like or dislike the Canadiens, you cannot ignore the depth of talent they have upfront. While only 2 or 3 of these players are currently top line calibre, they have almost 4 lines deep of players who are good enough to be second line players.
With the additions of Sean Monahan and Evgenii Dadanov this offseason, these are the projected lines at the moment for the Canadiens, according to Dailyfaceoff.com:
Caufield - Suzuki - Hoffman
Drouin - Dvorak - Anderson
Dadanov - Dach - Gallagher
Byron - Evans - Armia
Now the problem is, these projected lines don't include Monahan or Slafkovsky. Everyone in the current top 9 of the Habs have scored or are capable of scoring 20+ goals. Now add in Monahan and Slafkovsky to these lines and you end up having 2 possible 20 goal scorers playing on the 4th line, now tell me, how does that type of team plan on tanking for Bedard?
If the Montreal Canadiens want a chance at Connor Bedard, they will need to start shipping out these pieces and according to IB THE GAMBLER, those trades might just be coming soon!
Still believe #Habs are on track for another major move before or during first month of season. Just the vibes I get from certain people in the know. #NHL #Canadiens� IB THE GAMBLER 🔌 (@incarceratedbob) August 18, 2022
| POLL | ||
Should the Canadiens tank or try for the playoffs? | ||
| Tank | 61 | 58.1 % |
| playoffs | 44 | 41.9 % |
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