Canadiens: A Look Back At The Laurent Dauphin, Michael McCarron Trade

In reality, when the Montreal Canadiens sent former first round pick Michael McCarron to the Nashville Predators in exchange for forward Laurent Dauphin, the trade should’ve been left as just that. A trade.

McCarron, a 27-year-old forward out of the US National Development Program, was seen as little more than a failed project by the Canadiens after being taken 25th overall by the team in the 2013 NHL Draft. A big, bruising winger coming in at 6’06 and 232 pounds, a promising rookie season in the AHL in 2015-16 gave way into injury troubles and an overall lack of offensive production. Dauphin, a 26-year-old center out of the QMJHL’s Chicoutimi Sagueneens, was a former second round pick of the Arizona Coyotes in, like McCarron, 2013, who had just 35 NHL games to his name, making his mark as a solid two-way AHL player who struggled to find consistent minutes.

Trades like these are something the Canadiens are no stranger to, and in most cases, they drift off quietly into the night, never to be heard from again. One such trade that comes to mind personally, is the now long forgotten one for one between Hunter Shinkaruk and Kerby Rychel, two more first round picks in 2013 who had established themselves as quality AHL contributors, without much in the way of actual NHL chances, which only continued in Montreal.

In many ways, Dauphin and McCarron should’ve met a similar fate, as Shinkaruk and Rychel were both out of the NHL within less than two years. Shinkaruk briefly finding a home in the KHL with Kunlun Red Star before finding himself in the Swedish 1st division, and Rychel who hasn’t played professionally since being released from an AHL tryout during the 2019-20 season. While being cut from similar backgrounds and similar career paths, Dauphin and McCarron have been anything but AHL regulars this season, with both players unexpectedly finding bottom-six roles with the Canadiens and Predators respectively.

It goes without saying that Nashville and Montreal have undergone very different paths thus far this season. The Predators were largely expected to be a non-playoff team this season considering their over-abundance of aging veterans and lack of any true star power, but have taken a few surprise performances from players like Matt Duchene, Filip Forsberg, and Juuse Saros, and ran with it to the tune of a 31-20-4 record.

The Canadiens struggles this season need no introduction and or further explanation, but they’ve been playing fantastic hockey under Martin St. Louis and it’s safe to say former bench boss Dominique Ducharme was one of the main, if not the sole reason for the Habs struggles this season (bold statement I know but hey). Along with the resurgence of youngsters like Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and even goaltender Samuel Montembeault, Dauphin has similarly stepped up and become a feel-good story for this Canadiens team, ditto McCarron in Nashville.

Despite initially being seen as a throw-away deal, the Michael McCarron Laurent Dauphin trade has reaped surprise returns for the Montreal Canadiens.

While the Michigan native got his chances in Montreal, (with a high of 31 games played in the 2016-17 season) he was never able to stick with the team long-term, being plagued by a lack of foot speed and, as stated, offensive production at the NHL, and to an extent, AHL level. While he had only played in 14 games with the Milwaukee Admirals this season, McCarron has gotten into 32 with the Predators posting 4-5-9 totals, including a four-point game versus the San Jose Sharks on Saturday. With Nashville thriving under an underdog mentality considering their projections heading into 2021-22, McCarron has emerged as a great fit for the team’s bottom six and one who I wouldn’t be surprised if we see stick around into this year’s playoffs and possibly beyond.

Dauphin initially came into the lineup as nothing more than an injury call-up as a Covid-19 outbreak and abundance of injuries sapped the life out of the Habs lineup early on. In spite of this though, Dauphin has managed to stick around even as regulars like Mike Hoffman and Brendan Gallagher have returned and started heating up.

Compared to the struggles of regulars like Joel Armia, or failed off-season pickups in Cedric Paquette or Mathieu Perreault, Dauphin has punched above his weight and found himself a role on a Canadiens team that has embraced a nothing-to-lose mentality and ran with it. With 2-5-7 totals over 24 games this season, Dauphin has had his fair share of highlight reel moments for the Habs and has stepped up in times where a player of his role would typically take a backseat.

In spite of all the Canadiens struggles this season, ones which I have personally discussed to no end (and now wish to cease discussing considering they’re, well, winning), the number of feel-good stories the Habs, and their affiliates, have produced, is something to admire and even moreso, another reason to cheer for this team in a year where there hasn’t been a whole lot to cheer for.

Michael Pezzetta cracking the bottom six after being a fringe AHLer last season, Andrew “The Hamburglar” Hammond himself returning to the NHL after nearly four years away, Rem Pitlick picking up right where he left off after his second waiver wire claim this season, and of course, Dauphin finding a role after biding his time with the Laval Rocket for the past two seasons.

I’m not going to sit here and say that just because the Habs have had these stories, or because they’re winning currently, that the season is automatically salvaged, because that just wouldn’t be true. There’s still a number of things this team needs to fix, and a lot of it is still connected to the once-former bench boss and once former GM. However, with guys like Dauphin on the up and up, I think there’s definitely more to this Habs team than meets the eye as we enter the end half of this 2021-22 season.

While most AHL trades done by NHL teams typically fall to the waist side, Michael McCarron for Laurent Dauphin has emerged as a surprising outlier, and as both the Predators and Canadiens enter their end of season push, I myself quite frankly, am all for it. Bring on the feel-good stories for the Montreal Canadiens. Feels like we haven’t seen the last of them just yet.