Making Sense of The Canadiens, Oilers Trade Rumour

The Montreal Canadiens have not been this cold on the ice since Michel Therrien was hired as head coach. That’s the first time Therrien was hired as coach. However, that hasn’t stopped, and possibly is the reason why things are heating up so much off the ice.

A series of minor moves by the Canadiens organization has led to some major trade speculation over the past 24 hours. First, the team asked Zack Kassian not to bother reporting to the St. John’s Ice Caps of the American Hockey League after he cleared waivers. This move makes little sense, unless the team already has a deal in the works for the right winger.

Kassian is yet to play a game this season, after being involved in an off-ice incident where his truck was smashed into a tree in Montreal in the wee hours of an early October morning. It was a few days before the Habs regular season was set to begin, but the incident led to a stint in rehab for Kassian and clearly out of favour with the Canadiens management team.

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Last night, Elliotte Friedman reported on Hockey Night in Canada that there are teams with interest in Kassian, who are currently doing a thorough “background” check on the 24 year old forward. He mentioned the San Jose Sharks and Edmonton Oilers as possible destinations.

Today, Eric Engels, also of Sportsnet, took to twitter saying there is definitely something going on between the Oilers and Canadiens on the trade front. The Habs are of course without goaltender Carey Price for the foreseeable future and could be in the market for a goaltender.

The Oilers minor league affiliate in the AHL, the Bakersfield Condors, scratched their regularly used goaltender Ben Scrivens for today’s game. Speculation quickly heated up and dots were connected that linked Kassian to the Oilers for Scrivens.

Mandatory Credit: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

This deal makes some sense on the surface. Habs need a filler for Price to try and shut the door in the short term and end a terrible skid. They have an extra forward who the organization wants to cut ties with but that has some potential.

Why not kill two birds with one stone and send Kassian packing for Scrivens?

Well, Scrivens has plenty of NHL experience, but has been absolutely terrible this year. In the American Hockey League. Trading for Scrivens wouldn’t be hopeing for a magical Devan-Dubnyk-type turnaround, it would be rolling the dice on an Andrew-Hammond-like once-in-a-lifetime surprise season.

Scrivens posted spectacular numbers in half of a season with the Los Angeles Kings, but other than that has been middling to awful at the NHL level. Making mattes worse, he took his $2.3 million cap hit to the minors this season and has posted a 3.47 goals against average and a .893 save percentage in ten starts. He had a similar 3.16 GAA and .890 SV% in 57 games with the Oilers last season.

It wouldn’t be much of an add for the Habs, but then again, they would only be trading away a player they got for a fourth liner last summer who hasn’t played a hockey game since and has been in the substance abuse program.

Kassian doesn’t just have no trade value, he passed through waivers earlier this month proving he actually has negative trade value due to his $1.75 million salary and questionable past.

Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

So, the return of Scrivens seems underwhelming at first, but actually makes some sense when you dig a little deeper and consider how low Kassian’s value is right now.

However, another minor move by the Canadiens today had Habs fans, myself included, thinking there may be more to this potential Habs-Oilers swap than a minor league goalie for a guy who hasn’t played yet his season.

The Habs announced they have recalled offensive defenseman Mark Barberio from the St. John’s Ice Caps this afternoon. The Montreal native has scored 20 points in 26 games for the AHL affiliate, so he has earned the callup, but it leaves the team with eight healthy defenders.

The Habs have carried eight defensemen all season, but it has been out of necessity as they can not send any of them to the minors without passing through waivers. The team does not want to lose young defenders Greg Pateryn and Jarred Tinordi for nothing though the waiver wire, so they have mostly sat in the press box as healthy scratches this season.

Tom Gilbert was injured and will soon be placed on injured reserve, but even without him, the team has seven healthy defenders which is more than enough until Gilbert returns to full health.

So, why call up Barberio if it is not necessary? The team has plenty of offensive options in P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov, Nathan Beaulieu and Jeff Petry. They don’t need Barberio, unless a defenseman is on the way out of town in this potential Habs-Oilers deal.

Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Another thing holding up this trade is the holiday roster freeze that is in effect. Teams are not allowed to put players on waivers or make trades until midnight tonight, increasing speculation that something is ready to be finalized, but can’t be pulled off until the clock strikes midnight.

Let’s face it, Kassian for Scrivens is an extremely minor trade that would likely have little to no effect on both franchises. If Scrivens were an NHL goaltender he wouldn’t be in the minors and if Kassian was a top six winger he wouldn’t have passed through waivers and then been asked to stay home.

What makes this scenario interesting is the timing of the Barberio callup. The Habs don’t need him, so why bring him up? The Oilers have tons of forwards, but desperately need help on the back end. Is Jarred Tinordi or Greg Pateryn being included in the deal to try and pry a scoring winger out of the Oilers?

It’s possible. The Oilers have Andrej Sekera, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klekbom locked up on the left side, but could really use a guy like Pateryn to solidify the right side.

This is where the deal starts to spiral out of control and continue to get enormous. What do the Oilers include to get Pateryn? Most Habs fans would answer Jordan Eberle or Nail Yakupov to play right wing on one of the top two lines. But they are worth far more than Pateryn, so then what do the Habs add to even it out?

These hypotheticals have been thrown around all day on twitter until suddenly the deal is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for Nathan Beaulieu. We then look at it and say how did we get all the way from Scrivens and Kassian to a coule of elite, young players?

The two teams do make ideal trade partners. Montreal has a plethora of NHL ready defenders, while the Oilers have almost too many skilled forwards to fit in the lineup every night.

However, as much sense as it could make to send a good young defenseman west for a skilled young winger, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense for the Oilers to make that big splash at this time of year.

The type of trades we see this time of year and fillers being dealt for contracts. The big trades always happen in the offseason, while the rental market won’t even heat up until late January and will take off in mid to late February.

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For now however, we are left with minor tweaks and that’s about it. We are left with minor league goalies for spare parts type of trades, which is exactly what Scrivens for Kassian would be. As fun as it is to try and come up with a huge trade that works for both teams, it just doesn’t make sense at this point.