Montreal Canadiens: Chuck Fletcher may be a good addition to front office

With Chuck Fletcher on the market, the Montreal Canadiens may have an opportunity to add a solid hockey mind to their management team.

The Minnesota Wild were one of the teams to have their post-season lives come to an end early. All it took was five games for the Winnipeg Jets to close out the series despite a heroic Game Three performance from the Wild. Changes were coming them after the final buzzer, and it started with the general manager, which is a move some Montreal Canadiens fans hoped happened closer to home.

Wild owner Craig Leipold chose not to renew GM Chuck Fletcher’s contract seeing his nine-year tenure with the team come to an end. Minnesota made the playoffs six of those nine seasons but unfortunately only have two series wins to show for it. While the Wild are on the search for the next man for the job, Fletcher is on the open market.

Now we have a little fun. Is there a fit for Fletcher with the Montreal Canadiens? For one, he’s from Montreal, so personally, you could see the appeal of wanting to join on. He does, however, have a list of not-so-nice-to-look-at moves that stand out like a sore thumb. At the top of the list has to be the contract situation with both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.

They were two of the best players in the league and Fletcher managed to get them both signed ahead of the 2012 Lockout. Those contracts don’t exactly move the needle when you look at them now considering that both are signed at a little over $7.5 million until the end of the 2025 season. Strap them along with a pair of no movement clauses, and it’s not surprising to see why the Wild are facing some cap issues moving into next year.

Additionally, there’s the Martin Hanzal trade that ‘set the market’ as far as trades go at the deadline. In many ways, it’s because of that deal why other general managers set their prices on their players so high including Marc Bergevin when it came to Max Pacioretty. The Arizona Coyotes were clear sellers, and Hanzal was a name brought up in discussions weeks prior to the actual day. Fletcher struck first on the centre acquiring him for a 2017 first-round pick, 2018 second-round pick, conditional 2019 fourth-round pick, and Grayson Downing.

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Minnesota was having a really good season, and Fletcher appeared on radio shows around the country implying that acquiring Hanzal was ‘go for it’ move. Unfortunately, the fell out of top spot in the Central and had to face St. Louis in the first-round. Hanzal put up four goals and nine assists in the 20 regular season games he played for the Wild and had only a single goal in the opening playoff series matchup.

To put the cherry on top of a widely disliked trade, ownership voiced their regret in the move. That evidence doesn’t work in his favour, but there have been good things Fletcher has done in his tenure as Wild general manager. Acquiring Nino Niederreiter from the New York Islanders, who at the time was a struggling young player, for a third and Cal Clutterbuck has worked out pretty well considering the former has had three 20-goal seasons since.

The move to acquire Devan Dubnyk for only a third has looked amazing. There’s no way the Wild have the success they’ve had the last four years without him in net as he’s been among the league-leaders in save percentage since. You also can’t overlook the Eric Staal signing who’s looked rejuvenated in his two seasons in Minnesota. The fact that he’s only making $3.5 million is even better.

Minnesota has also drafted very well in Fletcher’s tenure. Before joining Pittsburgh’s managerial staff, his before signing with the Wild, he was the Anaheim Ducks’s Director of Hockey Operations and Vice President of Amateur Scouting. Fletcher knows his stuff as far was drafting goes in it’s shown in the type of players they’ve managed to bring in. Mathew Dumba, Jonas Brodin, and Jason Zucker, to name a few, have been key contributors to the team so far while the likes of Jordan Greenway are pegged for a breakout rookie year.

Fletcher may be looking for another general manager position which could complicate the discussion of him joining the Montreal Canadiens. There also hasn’t been any quotes from him in what his future plans are. The Carolina Hurricanes GM spot is open, although no one appears to want it at the moment, and the new Seattle team may be an attractive spot.

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If Montreal could reach out and start a conversation, it would only do good for the organization. You could never have enough hockey minds in a team’s front office, and Fletcher’s experience and knowledge of young talent would be an asset moving forward.

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