Montreal Canadiens: Three Players Jeff Gorton Will Be Motivated To Acquire Via Trade

Vitali Kravtsov

We often see new general managers acquire a few players that they are familiar with from a previous stop in their career. In Gorton’s case, that means most of the past decade of drafted players from the Rangers organization.

Gorton would be quite familiar with any player that was selected by the Rangers recently, and would obviously think highly of them if he was part of the management team that decided to use a draft pick on a particular player.

One player who has fallen out of favour a bit with the Rangers, and is certainly available via trade, is Vitali Kravtsov.

The Russian winger was the 9th overall pick in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft. The Rangers, as is Gorton’s tendency, went with speed and skill with this pick, ignoring the often overblown Russian factor.

Yet, fast forward a couple of years and sure enough, Kravtsov is back in Russia playing in the KHL after failing to make the Rangers team out of training camp. He would have stuck around North America if he were playing at the NHL level, but when he was demoted he refused to go down and ultimately headed back to play for Traktor Chelyabinsk.

He is playing quite well for them too. He has five goals and eight points in 11 games so far this season, after scoring 16 goals and 24 points in 49 games for the same time last year during the NHL lockout.

Kravtsov only had four points in 20 career NHL games but was playing a very depth role with Kevin Rooney and Brett Howden being his most frequent linemates.

He is still just 21 years old and has a ton of skill. He is a big winger, and though the Habs biggest need isn’t at wing, we could see quite the rebuild here in the coming months. If a couple of veteran wingers are moved out, it would make a lot of sense for Gorton to acquire Kravtsov, a player he is very familiar with from their time together with the Rangers.

It wouldn’t cost a ton either. If the Habs sell off a few veterans and add a handful of draft picks, moving a second rounder for Kravtsov would be a smart move.