Montreal Canadiens: Three Non-Rentals The Habs Need to Trade This Season

The Montreal Canadiens season is going horribly.

They sit last in the entire NHL and are on track to be the first team to ever finish 32nd overall in the NHL. The writing is on the wall and it is quite obvious that this team will not be making the playoffs this season.

Though it is still about two months away, the Canadiens are sure to be sellers at the upcoming trade deadline.

Moving out players that are on expiring contracts is the easy decision. Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak and Chris Wideman are defencemen that are slated to be unrestricted free agents at season’s end. Teams will offer picks for their services for the remainder of the season and the Canadiens will surely move all three.

The same could be said for forwards Mathieu Perreault and Cedric Paquette. Expect the Canadiens to trade both of them for draft picks ahead of the March 21st trade deadline.

Trading the guys on expiring deals is the easy job. The difficult part is finding the right trade fro players who have term left on their contracts.

If the Canadiens only move out expiring contracts, they aren’t going to get big returns for anyone, aside from Chiarot who could net a first round pick in return.

So, if the Canadiens really want to kickstart a rebuild, they are going to have to trade away players with term left on their contracts. Who could that be?

Here are the three players the Canadiens need to trade if they want to get serious about a rebuild.