Should the Montreal Canadiens offer sheet or trade for Sebastian Aho?

Carolina saying they’re willing to match any offer sheet could just be a method to save face. If they were willing to give Aho a deal north of $9.5 million per, or around that stratosphere, Aho would be signed already.

The Montreal Canadiens have a lot of space, and with making limited signings and missing out on Duchene, the floor is wide open to add on some significant salary. Many are worried about the four first-round pick compensation for offer sheets, but Aho hasn’t impressed that much to get into that range of things.

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He would enter a realm with Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and, as of noon, Artemi Panarin. High-end centres do make more in the NHL but it would be way too strong of a jump after a single year. That said, it would be perfect for the Montreal Canadiens if they could get Aho, in the event of an offer sheet, beneath that $10.58 million cap hit.

If so, the Habs would only need to give up their own first, second, and third-round pick which wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The issue here is the competition.

Montreal isn’t the only team in on Sebastian Aho linking back to Lebrun’s first tweet in which he said the Habs were one of three teams to give the Carolina Hurricanes a call. If that’s the case, Marc Bergevin may find himself in a ‘free agent frenzy’ type of battle. The reason why a lot of these deals signed on July 1st are so outrageous is that you’re competing with other teams and driving up the price.

Take what happened with Joe Pavelski. The 34-year-old really wanted a third year on his deal and the San Jose Sharks were unwilling to do that. The Dallas Stars, on the other hand, were and thus Pavelksi becomes a Star.

If the negotiating battles fall underneath that threshold, the Montreal Canadiens are fine. However, if a lower-scale team who is desperate to improve instantly pushes the number over and the compensation goes to four first-rounders, the Habs may have to reconsider.

The more simple scenario is a regular trade. Things can get fairly dicey for the Habs here as well. What kind of value would the Carolina Hurricanes want in exchange for their franchise centre?

Carolina hasn’t been the best at trades when it comes to returns (the Jeff Skinner trade for example), but they may tread more lightly here. Would they want a centre back? If that’s the case, they could easily ask for Jesperi Kotkaniemi or Ryan Poehling. Bergevin likely hangs up the phone at that point yet it could move on to Nick Suzuki who is a centre though many believe he would excel more as a winger.

Another possibility is including Jonathan Drouin in a package with a first round pick and a prospect or two. Drouin played centre in his first season with the Montreal Canadiens and it didn’t go as well as everyone planned. However, a change of scenery may be what does the trick for Drouin after another polarizing season in Montreal.

That likely isn’t enough given Aho’s impact on the Hurricanes making a trade very complicated.

We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out, but the fact that the Montreal Canadiens are in this battle is a massive positive. Bergevin isn’t sitting on his hands and is trying to make the Habs better and getting Aho would surely do that.