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.