Montreal Canadiens: Kent Hughes Will Certainly Help Convince Jordan Harris to Sign

The Montreal Canadiens introduced their new general manager yesterday and his name is

Lex Luthor

Jeff Bezos

Kent Hughes.

Hair growth troubles jokes aside, the Canadiens inked former player agent Kent Hughes to a five year contract to join Jeff Gorton in the Habs front office. The pair will continue to build the management team and will soon start to guide the Canadiens through something between a retool or a full scale rebuild.

Hughes brings plenty of experience working with people in NHL front offices, but from the other side of the table. He has negotiated great contracts for Darnell Nurse, Michael Matheson, Patrice Bergeron and Kris Letang over the past couple of years, but now he will be trying to work the opposite angles to make players fit into the Habs salary structure. (Or get veteran players out of the Habs salary structure altogether).

Naming Hughes as the team’s general manager does have one other benefit. He has a relationship with Canadiens third round draft pick Jordan Harris who currently plays for Northeastern in the NCAA. Harris is a terrific two-way defender for Northeastern and is on the early season long list for Hobey Baker nominations as the countries best player.

The problem certainly isn’t with his development since being drafted in the 2018 NHL Draft, but that he is coming to the end of his college career. Since Harris is completing his fourth year with Northeastern, he is eligible to be an NHL free agent this August if he wishes.

There are no guarantees with prospects, but the 21 year old sure looks like he could step onto an NHL blue line tomorrow night and be quite comfortable. He plays a relaxed, safe, defensive game but also knows when to jump into the rush without being too risky. There is no question he could play on the Canadiens third pairing and not look out of place. He has the skills to quickly move up the depth chart as well.

But, he could be doing that elsewhere if he just waits until the summer.

Fortunately for the Canadiens, their new general manager has a lot of ties to Harris. First of all, two of Kent Hughes children play on the same team as Harris right now at Northeastern. Riley and Jack Hughes are forwards who are teammates with Harris and grew up in the same area in Massachusetts.

In fact, the Canadiens new general manager coached Harris back in 2012-13 when Harris was playing on an elite Peewee team in the Boston area.

There has been a lot of speculation about Harris future with the Canadiens organization. Having the freedom to become an unrestricted free agent at the age of 22 would be quite enticing. It is probably something that an agent like Hughes would have recommended.

However, with Hughes calling the shots for the Canadiens now, it has to help Harris feel more comfortable signing with the team and starting his NHL career late this season.

Can you imagine negotiating your entry-level contract with your old peewee coach? Hard to say no to someone like that isn’t it? In this case I certainly hope so.

There is no guarantee Harris will become a top pairing defender or a future NHL star, but after a really horrible season, it would be salt in an enormous wound if Harris chose to sign with his hometown Boston Bruins instead.

Hopefully Hughes can convince the buddy of his two kids to join him in Montreal.