Canadiens Confirm Plans for Unfinished Trade Deadline Business

Sportsnet’s Eric Engels wrote about the Montreal Canadiens’ plans during this past trade deadline and their unfinished business heading into the offseason. General manager Kent Hughes said he was trying to acquire a top-six forward to play with Patrik Laine and Alex Newhook. He didn’t land that player, but the team is still in the market and will take another swing this summer.

Hughes said:

“If there had been somebody for us to get that could play up the lineup and help, somebody who could’ve played with Newhook and Patrik Laine, that was where we were testing the waters for.”

In the end, the Canadiens didn’t decide on anything because of the cost associated with landing someone who was a less-than-ideal fit. It sounds like there were options to bring in a depth forward, but doing so would have meant asking head coach Martin St. Louis to make changes to a lineup he liked. It’s one thing to ask a coach to make room for a top-six difference-maker. It’s another to bump a guy for a depth addition.

St. Louis wasn’t about to change the lines, and Hughes said, “…we’d have just been bringing in injury depth, and the cost for injury depth was really significant.”

How the Canadiens Acquire the Player Will Likely Be Via Trade

Hughes hinted the Canadiens are more likely to explore a trade than spend wildly in free agency. “We’re not going to go into free agency like a bunch of drunken sailors and get stuck with eight-year deals that we wish we could get out of the minute we get into them,” Hughes said. He then noted, “… I think we’re probably closer to overpaying in terms of what we give up in assets to acquire a player.”

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