Montreal Canadiens swap depth acquiring Jake Lucchini and Joseph Blandisi
By Omar L
The Montreal Canadiens went for a lower-scale deal acquiring Jake Lucchini and Joseph Blandisi from the Pittsburgh Penguins for Riley Barber and Phil Varone.
The Montreal Canadiens have a number of expiring contracts this season down in the AHL. Riley Barber and Phil Varone were two of those players, and it would’ve been interesting to see what either of them got had they stuck around. However, those two have new homes as the Habs completed another deal acquiring Jake Lucchini and Joseph Blandisi from the Pittsburgh Penguins in the process.
It’s a simple AHL deal, and Marc Bergevin didn’t do himself any favours as far as relieving himself from contract negotiations this summer. Both Lucchini and Blandisi are pending restricted free agents, and it’ll take the next coming weeks to decide whether they get signed.
Lucchini is a 24-year-old forward who can play both centre and left-wing. The Penguins signed him to an entry-level deal out of Michigan Tech back in 2019, where he serves as a captain in his senior year. His professional debut was a solid one as he put up 6 goals and added an assist in 15 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
His production has slowed down quite a bit though, since then. Lucchini surpassed his goal total from last season with 7 goals and has 8 assists on top of that, but it’s taken him 53 games to do so.
Blandisi is a year older than Lucchini and has more professional experience. The 25-year-old was a 2012 sixth-round pick of the Colorado Avalanche drafted out of the OHL while playing for the Owen Sound Attack. He made his NHL debut in the 2015-16 season playing 41 games for the New Jersey Devils but also had a successful campaign in the AHL with Albany putting up 25 points in 31 games.
The up-and-down trajectory of Blandisi hasn’t changed as he moved to the Anaheim Ducks and eventually, Pittsburgh still periodically getting sent down to the AHL and managing to produce at a decent rate. Overall, Blandisi has 134 points in 184 AHL games and was named an All-Star for Albany in 2017.
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Varone and Barber have been key players with the Laval Rocket while the latter saw nine games with the Montreal Canadiens. Again, it’s an AHL swap and it’ll be interesting to see if Lucchini can fill in the production Barber’s 31 points in 39 games set up.