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Montreal Canadiens: Five Best Trades Since 2000

By Ken MacMillan

GLENDALE, ARIZONA - OCTOBER 30: Brendan Gallagher #11 of the Montreal Canadiens is congratulated by Shea Weber #6, Tomas Tatar #90, and Phillip Danault #24 after scoring against the Arizona Coyotes during the first period of the NHL game at Gila River Arena on October 30, 2019 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, ARIZONA - OCTOBER 30: Brendan Gallagher #11 of the Montreal Canadiens is congratulated by Shea Weber #6, Tomas Tatar #90, and Phillip Danault #24 after scoring against the Arizona Coyotes during the first period of the NHL game at Gila River Arena on October 30, 2019 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /
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The Montreal Canadiens, like all teams, have made some great trades that make you wonder what the other team was thinking and have also been guilty of some poor swaps. Take a look at their top five trades since 2000.

The Montreal Canadiens, like much of the rest of the world, are on pause at the moment. Their season came to a screeching halt after 71 games and we still don’t know when, or if, we will see the 2019-20 version of the Habs again.

The team was not exactly dominating on the ice this season. They were ten points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, and a perfect 11 game finish to their season likely would not have been enough to get them into the playoffs.

As we await an announcement of when the NHL calendar will start up again, and what it is going to look like when it does, we have been looking back at some of the best and worst decisions the Habs have made this century. We started by looking at the five best draft picks since the 2000 NHL Draft and the five worst decisions on the draft floor since then.

Today, we are taking a look at their five best trades since 2000. We could look back further, but when you start trying to compare players from the Habs glory years of the 50’s and 70’s to more recent players, it puts the greatest players of the past 20 years in an impossible scenario. We all know Andrei Markov was a great defenceman, but when you compare to Habs all-time greats, Markov’s exceptional play gets dwarfed by the giant numbers of Stanley Cups won by the likes of Larry Robinson, Doug Harvey, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard.

It can be fun to do those all-time rankings, and heck, we even took a recent look at where Markov ranks among Habs defencemen, but it is impossible to compare something that happened in 1945, before the draft or trade deadline day even existed, to a deal made at the last second before the trade deadline in 2016.

So, to make things a little more clear, we have been doing these top fives, but only dating back to the year 2000. It keeps things a little more modern and most of these decisions sent ripple effects that are still impacting the roster today.

So, without further adieu, let’s take a look at the Montreal Canadiens five best trades since 2000.

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