Latest Update On Canadiens Players On The Trade Block

The clock keeps ticking as we approach Monday’s trade deadline and all eyes are on Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. The question exactly is, who will be traded and what will we get in return?

Ben Chiarot has finally left the building as he was traded on Wednesday night to the Florida Panthers. He of course was in the middle of many rumors for quite some time now and the new management of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton got exactly what they wanted in their return.

Here is the remaining full list of Canadiens’ players that are rumored to be on the trade block and what the asking price might be.

Brett Kulak LD

Salary: Pending UFA – $1,850,000

Rumored Ask: 2nd round pick

Rumored Teams Interested: PIT, COL, FLA, CGY, NYR, BOS, MIN

Yup. You read that correctly. According to Frank Serravalli the asking price for Brett Kulak is a 2nd round pick and Dave Pagnotta agreed that Kulak could be on the market.

A 2nd round pick is definitely rich for Brett Kulak. However, this is a serviceable depth defenceman who can still play bottom paired minutes on a regular basis. Great guy to have in the dressing room and a hard worker on and off the ice.

The asking price can be taken as a sign that Kulak is available but the team may want to keep him and try to get him to sign a contract extension. Kulak is a great mentor to the younger players and having him play regular minutes behind Joel Edmundson and Alexander Romanov would be no stretch of the imagination.

That being said however, at a low cap hit like Kulak offers, there might be a contending team willing to give that 2nd round pick in order to get the extra depth heading into the playoffs.

Artturi Lehkonen LW/RW

Salary: Pending RFA – $2,300,000

Rumored Ask: 1st round pick

Rumored Teams Interested: WSH, NYR, COL

Artturi Lehkonen will likely not get traded, but there’s still a chance he might. We shouldn’t trade him, but it might be smart to trade him.

Confused yet?

Kent Hughes went on record saying that Lehkonen is part of the culture the Canadiens are trying to produce. However, he is willing to listen to anyone who is willing to pony up a first round pick for the Finnish forward.

Lehkonen is currently enjoying the best season of his career and fits perfectly under Martin St. Louis. He’s in line for a raise from his current $2.3 million salary with reports he can potentially gain upwards to $4 million on his next contract.

The Washington Capitals were going hard after Lehkonen at some point during the season, offering goaltender Ilya Samsonov as the main piece in return. These negotiations have appeared to die down now that Jake Allen is set to return against the Dallas Stars and Carey Price has made tremendous leaps in his rehabilitation.

Jeff Petry RD

Salary: 3 Years (2024-25) – $6,250,000 Possesses 15 team no trade list

Rumored Ask: Multiple Prospects + “bad” contract

Rumored Teams Interested: DAL, DET

The Jeff Petry “saga” is one for the ages.

He is the poster child of going from “Hero to Zero” with everything from his wife bashing the province of Quebec and Canada as a whole for the way they’ve been handling the COVID-19 pandemic, to Petry’s absolute nonchalance that nearly sent Samuel Montembeault to the hospital.

After laziness and pouting slowly becoming his trademark, Petry suddenly got a second wind under new head coach Martin St. Louis and we have magically seen the Petry of old all over again.

However, the damage has been done.

Petry’s request for a trade before Marc Bergevin was fired didn’t fall on deaf ears as Jeff Gorton got the message followed by Kent Hughes in turn. Upper management is taking a slow approach and openly said that they are not in a rush to trade Petry, but when the right offer presents itself, they’ll work something out.

The strongest rumors persisted between the Dallas Stars and the Detroit Red Wings, with the Flyers being in the mix at some point but those plans apparently went by the wayside when they re-upped Rasmus Ristolainen for the next 5 years totalling $25.5 million.

Detroit would make sense as he is a Michigan native and backing up captain Dylan Larkin, another Michigan native, would not only make a potential solid leadership tandem, but it’s a marketing department’s dream as well. As for Dallas, they were linked as interested with John Klingberg being an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. Texas also happens to be the home state of his wife, Julie.

Having to move such a heavy contract is rarely done at the trade deadline. If Petry moves, expect him to do so in the off-season.

Here’s the best of the rest, or honorable mentions if you wish. These are players that have appeared at least once in rumors. Some won’t fetch much in return while others might have to wait into the off-season due to their heavy contract.

• Chris Wideman – Pending UFA – $750,000
• Joel Armia – 3 Years (2024-25) – $3,400,000
• Laurent Dauphin – Pending UFA – $750,000
• Jonathan Drouin – 1 Year (2022-23) – $5,500,000
• Christian Dvorak – 3 Years (2024-25) – $4,450,000
• Shea Weber – 4 Years (2025-26) – $7,857,143