Montreal Canadiens: Analyzing the Josh Anderson Max Domi Trade

Max Domi Before the Trade

Max Domi was drafted by the then Phoenix Coyotes 12th overall in 2013. It took him a few years to make it to the big league, making his NHL debut in 2015.  But he seemed to be well worth the wait as Domi had a great NHL debut.

Playing against the L.A. Kings, Domi scored a goal and assist in his debut. This is quite something especially considering his father, Leafs great Tie Domi, scored one goal and no assists in 28 games in his first NHL season.

Domi did more than just double up his father in his first year, scoring 18 goals and 34 assists for 52 points in his rookie campaign. One year in the NHL, and Domi already topping his father in goals (Tie’s best was 15), assists (Tie: 17) and points (Tie: 29 points) in a single season.

That’s not a huge feat, as scoring goals and getting assists were at the bottom of Tie Domi’s tool kit, but its still pretty great. Domi was overshadowed by a great rookie class of 2015-2016, which included Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Calder Cup winner and undrafted player Artemi Panarin. Even among those players, Domi did receive 92 Calder votes, good for 6th.

Then, Domi never reached those heights again as a member of the Arizona Coyotes. The last two of his three years as a ‘Yote saw him score 9 goals in each season. The more worrying fact was that in that last year, he scored multiple empty net goals.

The guy Montreal gave up to get him was an interesting case. Alex Galchenyuk was drafted by Montreal third overall in 2012. 2012 was not a great draft. The first pick was Nail Yakupov, who flunked out of the NHL already. The Maple Leafs were lucky for Morgan Reilly to drop to them at 5th overall, and Tampa Bay stole Andrei Vasilevskiy 19th overall.

Galchenyuk wasn’t bad for Montreal, scoring 30 goals in 2015-2016, Domi’s rookie year. The weird thing was that with the Sarnia Sting, Galchenyuk played winger, but in Montreal, he was drafted to become that elusive number 1 centre.

Galchenyuk had his best year (2015-2016) on the wing, and it seemed to go wrong when he was moved to the centre position. The added defensive responsibility seemed to be too much for the young forward, and he struggled in his last years as a Canadien.

That made what happened after the trade perplexing. Domi had played wing in Arizona, but was going to try to be centre in Montreal. He had played centre before, but in the lower leagues, and who knew how that would translate. Who knew it would translate so well?

Max Domi was a spark-plug for emotion and offence for the Habs, scoring a career high 28 goals and 72 points in a full 82 game season. But, lightning would not strike twice, as Domi would come back to earth the year after, finding himself on the fourth line for long stretches and only scoring 17 goals and 44 points. In the play-ins and play-offs, he was the fourth-line centre, and only managed 3 assists in 10 games.

And that is the Max Domi story before the trade. But that is only half the story.

Josh Anderson Before the Trade

In the same draft that saw Alex Galchenyuk 3rd overall, Josh Anderson was taken by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 4th round, 95th overall. Montreal had the 94th overall pick that year, and they picked Brady Vail, who has not played an NHL game. Who was taken 93rd overall, I am sure no one asked. Well, its new Canadien Erik Gustafsson. On top of that, taken a few spots later at 105th overall? Current Canadien Brett Kulak.

The road to the NHL was not a fast one for Josh Anderson. He played 2 more years in the OHL as a member of the London Knights, and he played well, but not as dominant as you would want for an up-and-coming NHL player. He ended his OHL career with his best year of 27 goals and 51 points in 59 games.

One more year in the minors before his first NHL games, and it wasn’t incredible. With the Springfield Falcons, Anderson scored a scant 7 goals and 17 points in 52 games. That year, he was called up for 6 games, but only scored 1 assist. Next year was another year mostly in the AHL and Anderson was called up for 12 games where he scored 1 goal and 4 points.

After 2015-2016, Anderson was an NHL regular, only spending one more game in the AHL in 2017-2018. The great thing is that every year that Anderson has been in the NHL, he has taken a big step forward. 2016-2017 Anderson scored 17 goals and 29 points in 78 games. The year after he scored 19 goals and 30 points in 63 games. 2018-2019 was Anderson’s best year to date, scoring 27 goals and 47 points in a full 82 games. It doesn’t take a statistician to see the clear upward trend.

The spanner in the works? The 2019-2020 season was a very bad year for Anderson. In 26 games, he scored 1 goal and 4 points. That was the year that Anderson had a devastating shoulder injury, that required surgery and six months recovery.

Now obviously last year was not particularly indicative of Josh Anderson’s ability and skill set. The question with such a big injury that took so long to heal is how that will affect performance in the next year and beyond.

It was a risk that Montreal took when they made the trade.

The Trade

Marc Bergevin is certainly a fan of his one-for-one trades, and this feels so close to one, but isn’t. Marc Bergevin had to cough up a 3rd round pick to pry Anderson from Jarmo Kekäläinen’s hands. The Blue Jackets picked Samuel Knazko.

Montreal already had 8 other draft picks in the 2020 draft, and currently have 11 draft picks in the upcoming 2021 draft. So the 3rd round pick is not a big loss for the Canadiens.

It had the makings of a move that could make both teams happy. They were both dealing from a position of strength to address a position of weakness. Montreal had a surplus of centres, and in the play-ins, it was clear where Domi stood in the eyes of management and the coaching staff, spending most of his time anchored to the fourth line.

Columbus has a good amount of wingers with guys like Cam Atkinson and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Columbus needed a number 2 to slot in behind Pierre-Luc Dubois and provide offence for a team that has struggled with getting goals on the board in the past.

The trade was seen as controversial from the Canadiens side of things, and not for bad reasons. Max Domi was one year off of a 72 point season and had a “disappointing” season the year after with 17 goals and 44 points.

Disappointing  is in quotation marks because Josh Anderson’s best season so far had 27 goals and 47 points. That’s 10 more goals, but only 3 more points. And it is Anderson’s best year compared to Domi’s that was deemed disappointing.

That seemed a little suspect, and then came the third round pick. Everyone expected the Blue Jackets to add something to get Domi, but it was Montreal that had to add to get Anderson, but that is due to the fact that Montreal had no bargaining power on Domi.

Max Domi was playing on the fourth line, and was being out-played by the guys above him, but Domi  is not a fourth line guy, and he was going to demand not a fourth line price, while Anderson could still play up the line-up and be useful for the Blue Jackets.

Then, the terms came rolling in. A theory about the trade was that this was a way for Montreal to save cap space, as Anderson was going to sign for less than Domi, and that would allow for Bergevin to big game hunting, like for say Taylor Hall or Mike Hoffman.

That didn’t exactly work out. Domi signed for 2 years $5.3 million and Anderson signed for 7 years $5.5 million. Anderson’s contract offers stability and can be worth it if he performs. Domi’s contract ends and he becomes an unrestricted free agent.

So, that’s the context. In a normal year, we would be at the half-way point of the season, but in this year the season is almost done. But still, its as good a time as any to look at how the trade has played out so far.

Max Domi After the Trade

Max Domi seems like the type of player that plays best when he is the most comfortable. In his first year in Montreal, Domi was pretty solidly placed in the second-line centre role, behind Phillip Danault (as Montreal was not going to break up that first line of Tatar-Danault-Gallagher) and above Jesperi Kotkaniemi who was in his rookie year.

The second year was where it started to go wrong. Nick Suzuki was brought in and found himself on the second line more often than not, and Kotkaniemi was struggling to stay in the league. Domi was playing up and down the line-up. He even criticized Claude Julien and his coaching staff for a lack of communication on where he was playing and who he was playing with.

The situation is not much better in Columbus.

The Columbus Blue Jackets coach is John Tortorella, the increasing less polarizing and more frequently seen as just a poor coach in recent times. To say the Blue Jackets have had a tumultuous season is an understatement, and Domi has been dropped in the eye of the storm.

The small market team has been perpetually offensively challenged, but had a stud in young centreman Pierre-Luc Dubois who just signed a two year contract in the off season. The good news stopped there though, as Dubois soon after demanded a trade, with many people theorizing it was due to Tortorella.

Then came the shift, where Dubois put forth the least amount of effort possible, and was promptly benched for pretty much the whole game. Very soon after, he was traded to the Winnipeg Jets for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic.

Laine made his debut, and was promptly benched by Tortorella. The strange part is that Laine came out after the game and claimed that he had no idea why he was benched. So, not all sunshine and roses over there in Ohio.

Not to mention that Domi is one of those players that John Tortorella would historically hate. Ditto with Patrik Laine. That is to say, players that are talented on the offensive side of the game of hockey, but are rather deficient defensively.

In his first 10 games in Columbus, Domi scored one goal and two assists in January. The nice thing for Columbus is that each month, Domi has been getting better. 4 points in February, 5 points in March and 9 points in April. But that has come with getting healthy scratched recently.

The good thing is that Domi is only signed for one more year, and then he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Columbus has the option of re-signing him for cheap due to his lack of production and hope that he returns to form, or set him loose.

But really, any way you slice it, Domi has not worked out in Columbus, and the comforts that the Blue Jackets have with him are small.

It seems like they should be happy signing him for only two years, instead of, say signing him for seven years.

Josh Anderson After the Trade

Josh Anderson put most of the detractors to bed with his first game in a Canadiens uniform. In the season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Anderson had two goals, including a great individual effort against Leafs captain John Tavares as he sped and powered his way past the forward and practically willed the puck into the net.

And that seems to be the name of the game with Josh Anderson, a pure force of will. There are few that can match his speed and few that can match his size, and put those together you cannot stop him.

Its something that has extended to off the ice as well. Before a game against Winnipeg, Anderson promised that the team would come out flying. They ended up winning that game 4-2.

He hasn’t been afraid to fight on occasion this season, even though he probably should be a bit more. Anderson can provide the spark to a Canadiens team that seems to be sparkless as of late, especially when professional spark plug Brendan Gallagher has been injured.

Anderson has outscored Domi 17 to 7 this year, and is Montreal’s second leading goal-scorer. But more importantly, Anderson has been a leader and been visible in a good way in pretty much every game.

Anderson brings a new dimension to Montreal’s game without taking away from their strengths. He is physically imposing, but can keep up with the Canadiens’ speedy forwards and doesn’t slow them down. You couldn’t ask for a better fit.

Conclusion

While Max Domi has been getting better in the last little while, he hasn’t come close to the level that Josh Anderson has brought on and off the ice for the Canadiens. Unless the injury problems return in a big way, it is hard to see Montreal regretting this trade.

Word is that Tortorella is on his way out of Columbus after this year, and that is not surprising given how he has benched or angered any and all offensive players for the Blue Jackets. So who knows, Domi might bounce back with a good year under whoever replaces Torts.

But it seems the best case scenario at this point for the Blue Jackets is a win-win trade, and that is still a win for Marc Bergevin and the Canadiens. And right now, we can use all the wins we can get.