Montreal Canadiens: Three Past Habs Trades That Prove Value of “Selling”

The Montreal Canadiens lost games to the Seattle Kraken and Arizona Coyotes this week.

That ensured they would stay at the bottom of the NHL standings, at least for now, and likely through the trade deadline.

The deadline for making deals and shoring up a team’s roster before the postseason is on Monday, March 21st. We are only a few days away and there are some teams trying to decide whether to but or sell.

Buyers are teams that are likely to make the postseason and are willing to give up some future assets for players that can help them right now. The sellers are the teams that will miss the playoffs and are willing to move a veteran and acquire young players, prospects or draft picks that will hopefully help the team in the future.

Sitting at the bottom of the standings, it is obvious which group the Canadiens fit in with. They already started selling by trading away Tyler Toffoli who has two more years left on his contract.

Ben Chiarot is in the final year of his deal and is sure to be traded as well. But who else could go?

The Canadiens have to decide how far they want to go with their sell-off. Trading a player whose contract is up at season’s end like Chiarot is easy. But should they also move more players with term like Toffoli? Should Artturi Lehkonen be dealt? What about Jake Allen? Christian Dvorak?

Ideally, if a veteran player is traded, the return is a good prospect or a first round pick that can be a key piece of this team in two or three years.

The Canadiens have done quite well on a few “selling” type trades over the years. These three should help the team lean towards selling players like Dvorak or Lehkonen if they get the right offer.