Montreal Canadiens: The power of a trade rumour

Max Pacioretty was one of the best players on the ice for the Montreal Canadiens, and it makes you think whether the trade rumours are sparking him up a bit.

The Montreal Canadiens broke their five-game losing streak by defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning Thursday night in a shootout. Out of all teams for them to beat, the Lightning were probably the last on a lot of people’s list. However, the Habs had an amazing game save for a little penalty trouble in the first period.

It also helped that Carey Price was an absolute beast. We can usually expect that from him every game, but that, in particular, was something special. Price was beaten early in the second period after Nikita Kucherov got a shot past him through traffic, but it was feathers for the Lightning for the rest of the game.

I still can’t get over that save he made in overtime. That has to be a top-five save of the season.

Another standout of the game was Max Pacioretty. It was his best overall performance in a long time. Not only did he get a lot of scoring chances for the Habs, but he finally finished on one of them.

Ironically, it was off a Mikhail Sergachev turnover during 4-on-4 where the Habs captain beat Andrei Vasilevskiy. The goal was very Pacioretty-like, fans just haven’t seen much of it this season.

It makes you think whether something sparked inside of him. Sure he wants the team to win, but what if all the trade rumour talk is bringing out this improved play? This may be digging too deep, but Pacioretty’s lack of celebration after scoring is a little thought-provoking.

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On the one hand, you could say that he wanted to stay composed out of the acknowledgment that it was the Tampa Bay Lightning that they were facing and no lead is safe against them. However, all the noise around the Habs could be part of it as well.

Regardless of what happened in that game, Pacioretty may have already accepted the fact that his time in Montreal may be coming to an end. By improving his play, he increases his stock for other teams and makes it more likely that he’s moved sooner rather than later.

It’s easy to look at Pacioretty’s numbers in the past, but other teams are going to be looking at how he’s doing this season in a future deal.

It’ll be interesting to see if he keeps this up. Marc Bergevin isn’t going to trade Pacioretty for cheap and him playing this way will make it easier for teams to answer the call.

Next: Habs Trade Montoya

Do you think Pacioretty will use the trade speculation as motivation to perform Let us know your thoughts down below.