Montreal Canadiens: Five Moves Habs Did NOT Make That Led To Playoff Success
Matt Duchene
I lost count how many times Matt Duchene was rumoured to possibly be heading to the Montreal Canadiens.
First, he was a member of the Colorado Avalanche but unhappy and wanted out. There were rumours he was heading to Montreal, but he ultimately landed in Ottawa as the Senators sent a huge package of players to the Avs to get the deal done.
Just a year later, Duchene was on the trade block once again, and of course the Canadiens came up as a potential trade partner. Duchene was eventually shuttled to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a handful of picks and prospects.
About three months later, Duchene was an unrestricted free agent, and you guessed it, the Canadiens were on his short list. According to the insiders, it sounds like the Canadiens were on a very short list with the Nashville Predators, but Duchene would sign a seven year contract with an $8 million cap hit.
Duchene was coming off a 70 point season in 73 games, but he would score just 13 goals and 42 points in 2019-20, his first with the Predators. This season was far worse as Duchene scored just six goals and 13 points in 34 games. He still has five more years left on that seven year deal.
If the Habs had signed Duchene in July of 2019, they wouldn’t have had the cap flexibility to trade Max Dom for Josh Anderson because it added $2.5 million in cap space. They likely would have been forced to find a cheaper backup than Jake Allen this season as well.
They also would not have made the playoffs with Duchene on the team and Allen and Anderson playing elsewhere.
Taylor Hall
While Matt Duchene probably leads the league in times one player “almost went to Montreal but didn’t,” Taylor Hall would be a close second. It seems like every year he is a trade target of the Habs.
However, last season saw him dealt from the New Jersey Devils to the Arizona Coyotes. The offseason saw him sign with the Buffalo Sabres. Then, he was dealt to the Boston Bruins midseason, but all three times he was rumoured to possibly be heading to Montreal to suit up for the Canadiens.
Hall is a great player and he has produced on every team he played for, aside from the Sabres, but no one produced there this season. He likely would have fit in well with the Canadiens and put up really strong offensive numbers. However, to sign him as a free agent would have cost the Habs at least the $8 million that the Sabres gave him.
To find room under the salary cap, the Habs would have had to stay away from Tyler Toffoli and Joel Edmundson in the offseason. They also may not have had enough pennies to sign Corey Perry at the last minute like they did. Or, at the very least, he would have needed to stay on the taxi squad a lot longer than he did to begin the year.
So, would Hall have been good in Montreal this season? Yeah, most likely. Would he have been as good as Tyler Toffoli who had 28 goals and 44 points in 52 games and another ten points in 11 postseason games? Probably not, and when you also take Edmundson off the roster to make room, it’s just not worth it.
Which is exactly why Bergevin didn’t do it.
Wayne Simmonds
Early in free agency, the Habs were rumoured to be targeting Wayne Simmonds. The 32 year old winger was coming off an 8 goal and 25 point season in 68 games with the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres. Still, teams were apparently interested in signing him.
Bergevin was apparently the most interested in acquiring Simmonds. It was widely rumoured that he offered more than the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the Ontario native elected to sign with his hometown team instead.
You can say this isn’t a bullet that Bergevin dodged, but one that Kyle Dubas leapt in front of him to take. However, Bergevin clearly set a limit that he was willing to pay and when Simmonds refused, Bergevin wisely walked away.
You might remember Simmonds as the least memorable player from the Canadiens and Maple Leafs series. He scored zero goals and one assist in seven games, after a seven goal and two assist regular season in 38 games. This while starting the year on the Leafs top power play with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly.
With the savings from not paying Simmonds, Bergevin would eventually turn to Corey Perry to play a similar role. Perry has been excellent in the postseason, scoring the winning goal in Game 7 against the Leafs and he now has six points in 11 playoff games after scoring 21 points in 49 regular season contests.
Taking Perry off this team and replacing him with Simmonds is the difference between losing in the first round of the playoffs and making a run to the Stanley Cup semifinals. At least.
Tony DeAngelo
This was a bit of a weird one, but there were some rumours shortly after the trade deadline that the Canadiens had a plan in place to sign Tony DeAngelo. The only problem was he decided not to tear up his contract with the New York Rangers.
DeAngelo will be a polarizing figure for the rest of his career after he was suspended in Junior for using a racial slur against a teammate. It was his second suspension for violation of the league’s code of conduct that season, but the details of the first one have been kept quiet.
This season, DeAngelo got a hooking penalty in the Rangers first game and was then given an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for using some choice words with the referee. He was then benched for the next few games and apparently was not able to move on from the benching.
He eventually got in a fight with backup goaltender Alexander Georgiev and was then placed on waivers, went unclaimed, and then GM Jeff Gorton said DeAngelo would not play another game for the Rangers.
Since, DeAngelo has been in limbo as he isn’t allowed to play anywhere else, but there were rumours his contract could be terminated before the trade deadline. Then, after the deadline came the rumours that the Habs were interested in signing him if his contract with the Rangers was torn up.
Adding a player like DeAngelo would have sent shockwaves through the Habs fanbase. I can’t imagine Bergevin cares that much about what is said about his decisions on Twitter, but DeAngelo would have been quite the distraction to the team.
He also might have been the solution to the team’s woeful power play, but he has been suspended three times in his career for abuse of an official and got into some kind of altercation with a teammate earlier this season, and most unbelievably of all, was suspended in Junior for using a racial slur against a teammate.
That was a long time ago, but it is the kind of thing that would need to be addressed with teammates to this day. You would like to think he was misguided as a kid and has learned a lot since becoming an adult, but some things can’t be excused.
Would that distraction have hurt the Habs more than DeAngelo’s offensive acumen would have helped? Would the team have been strong enough in the dressing room to come back from down 3-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs or would the room have been fractured and trust broken among teammates?
It is hard to say, but there is no question it was a distraction worth avoiding.
Pierre-Luc Dubois
Remember that shift the would end up being Dubois’ last as a Columbus Blue Jackets player? He kinda forechecked but stopped short of actually doing anything when he got there. He didn’t hustle back and sort of just twirled around the ice for 20 or 30 seconds. He lollygagged his way to the bench after a while.
Then Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella benched him for the rest of the game and he never played for the team again.
Remember that shift?
Well, if the Habs last four games tell us anything, apparently that’s just how Dubois plays.
Dubois had one assist and no goals in four games against the Habs and never looked dangerous. He was billed as a big, physical two-way centre, but even with Mark Scheifele out of the lineup, Dubois was playing the wing and but the end of the series, he was on the fourth line wing with Nate Thompson at centre.
At the time of his benching, and public trade request, Dubois was rumoured to be a target of the Canadiens. With the eventual return for Dubois being Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic, it would have likely cost the Canadiens Nick Suzuki and possibly more to get the attention of the Blue Jackets.
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That was too much at the time, but it completely laughable right now. Suzuki has been great for the Canadiens all year and Dubois was completely invisible in that series. With Dubois on this team and Suzuki not, the Habs don’t even make the playoffs, let alone go on a run to the third round.