Montreal Canadiens: Analyzing the Josh Anderson Max Domi 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.