Montreal Canadiens: Five Players Who Will Fetch The Biggest Return at Trade Deadline
Artturi Lehkonen
Montreal Canadiens fans know what they have in Artturi Lehkonen at this point. The 26 year old is a very smart, defensive winger who is excellent on the penalty kill. We have also seen him create countless scoring chances and very rarely put them in the back of the net. He just doesn’t bring a lot of offence, but he still has plenty of value as a defensive winger.
The 18 goals he scored as a rookie in 2016-17 still are his career high and his highest point total to date was 31 in 2018-19. This season, he has four goals and 11 points in 31 games, so anyone acquiring him would be foolish to think he is a top six winger.
A year ago, the Vegas Golden Knights gave up second and third round draft picks for Mattias Janmark. Janmark offers a little more offence than Lehkonen, as he had ten goals and 19 points in 41 games for the Chicago Blackhawks at the time of the deal. But he was brought to Vegas to play a more depth role in the bottom six and show off his defensive game.
Lehkonen doesn’t have the same offensive ability so he wouldn’t have quite the same return as Janmark’s second and third round pick. Still, a team out there looking for safe depth in their bottom six will offer a second round pick for Lehkonen before this year’s trade deadline.
Carey Price
This one is a bit trickier to decipher. Carey Price has a ton of value thanks to his on-ice play over his career, but especially in the past two playoffs. Say what you want about his regular season stats lately and the ability (or lack thereof) of the Montreal Canadiens to clinch a playoff berth in a normal season.
However, when the playoffs began in 2020 and especially in 2021, Carey Price was arguably the best goalie on the ice both years.
In 2020, the Canadiens upset the Pittsburgh Penguins in the opening Play-In round before losing in five games to the Philadelphia Flyers. Price played all ten of the Canadiens postseason games that year and had the league’s best goal against average at 1.78. His .936 save percentage in that postseason ranked second behind only Joonas Korpisalo and his two shutouts were only bested by Robin Lehner.
Price was exceptional once again in the 2021 playoffs. The Canadiens just barely scraped their way into the postseason and then took off once they were, mostly thanks to a healthy Carey Price. He posted a 2.28 GAA and a .924 SV% in 22 games, carrying the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup Final.
Many teams will look at Price’s incredible numbers in the 32 playoff games he played over the past two seasons and want him on their team when the 2022 playoffs begin. The problems are all off-ice, but there are a lot of them.
Start with the $10.5 million salary that remains on the books for four more seasons. Who is going to be able to fit that in? How about the fact he hasn’t played a game yet this season? Between rehabbing a knee injury and a trip to the player assistance program for substance abuse, Price hasn’t played a game since the Stanley Cup Final. (With the way the Habs are playing, that might not be the worst thing). Also, there just isn’t much of a market for goalies. Which playoff bound team needs a very expensive starter? The Edmonton Oilers, but they are now on the outside looking in. The Colorado Avalanche maybe? But that cap hit going forward when Nathan MacKinnon needs a new contract in a year doesn’t work.
Finding a team that wants Price wouldn’t be difficult but finding a team that can make it all work would be tough. There will still be teams looking to acquire him, there just won’t be a bidding war and the Habs may need to retain salary to get a first round pick or a top prospect.
Ben Chiarot
Ben Chiarot is kind of like the Lehkonen of the blue line for Canadiens fans. All of his coaches seem to love him, but the fans can quickly see his limitations and they really stand out in the wrong way on some nights.
However, general managers around the league see a big, physical, defensive defenceman who played an insane number of minutes in each of the last two postseasons. They see a guy they can plug into their top four and allow him to play against tough competition in a playoff series and wear down those opposing players over the course of that series.
In the Canadiens run to the Stanley Cup Final last season, Chiarot averaged 25:15 per game, pairing with Shea Weber to play against Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, then Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers, then Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone en route to the Cup Final appearance. It was no coincidence that opposing teams top players struggled to produce offence in every series against the Canadiens. Price and Weber were keys to that but Chiarot played a big role as well.
We have seen defenders like Travis Hamonic, Brandon Montour, Jake Muzzin and Brady Skjei, who offer some offensive potential but are certainly known more for the defensive side of their games, go for first round picks, plus another pick or a prospect.
Chiarot fits somewhere in amongst that group and will be dealt for a first round pick before the trade deadline. His contract is up at the end of this season, so he is sure to be moved.
Christian Dvorak
While Chiarot is certain to be traded with his contract expiring at season’s end, Christian Dvorak is signed for three more seasons. However, that lengthy amount of control is what would make him enticing to other teams.
Three more years at just under $4.5 million isn’t a ton of money for a second or even third line centre. Dvorak has not hit the ground running with the Canadiens this season, as he has five goals and 12 points in 27 contests. Of course, no one is having a good year in Montreal this season so it is hard to hold that against him.
The 25 year old centre showed during his tenure in Arizona that he is a capable offensive centre. He scored 17 goals and 31 points in 56 games for the Coyotes in the 2020-21 season, which had him on pace for 25 goals and 45 points over a full season. He isn’t going to win a Selke Trophy anytime soon, but he is fine defensively making him a solid, reliable two-way centre.
The Canadiens just acquired him in the offseason for first and second round picks. They were in a difficult position, needing a centre near the end of the offseason after losing Jesperi Kotkaniemi to an offer sheet. The Canadiens gave up first and second round picks for Dvorak.
They might not get quite that much back for Dvorak if they traded him now, but it would be close. If a playoff bound team wants more depth down the middle or loses a centre to injury, I could see the Canadiens getting first and third round picks for Dvorak.
He is just 25 and showed he has 25 goal potential in the past so they really don’t need to trade him. But if everyone is on the table, Dvorak would have some of the highest trade value of anyone on the team.
Tyler Toffoli
No one on this team has more trade value than Tyler Toffoli right now. The Vancouver Canucks mistakenly allowed him to become a free agent following the 2019-20 season and the Habs were fortunate to sign him to a four-year deal with a $4.25 million cap hit.
The Canucks had added Toffoli in a deadline trade just a few months before he was scheduled to become a UFA. They gave up a second round pick, a fourth round pick, a really good prospect in Tyler Madden and a depth NHL player in Tim Schaller.
Since then, Toffoli scored ten points in ten regular season games for the Canucks, and has put up 33 goals and 61 points in 78 games with the Canadiens over the past two seasons. That’s essentially a full season of regular season games in a Canadiens jersey and 33 goals and 61 points would both be career highs for Toffoli if it was done in one season.
He also isn’t a free agent at the end of the season, so anyone acquiring the 29 year old would have him locked up for two more seasons after this one. The fact he is not a rental, and has scored at a higher rate than ever before since joining the Canadiens.
NHL teams are currently tripping over themselves trying to line up for a shot at Evander Kane. They would be even more excited to get Toffoli, who scored more goals than Kane last season and doesn’t have all of the questionable off-ice issues that come with Kane. In fact, Toffoli’s former teams actually seem to miss him and would welcome him back.
The Winnipeg Jets and San Jose Sharks pretty much chased Kane out of town.
We have seen Nick Foligno, Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Kasperi Kapanen traded for first round picks over the past two seasons. Toffoli has more value than any of those players with his combination of offence, defence, contract length and cap hit, playoff experience and winning history with the Los Angeles Kings in 2014.
If Toffoli is indeed traded, the Canadiens should be looking for a first round pick and a team’s top prospect in return.
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