Montreal Canadiens: Kent Hughes Needs to Take Advantage of Wild Rental Market

The Montreal Canadiens new general manager Kent Hughes has not been shy of making a big trade.

He has been busy leading up to the trade deadline, moving Tyler Toffoli to the Calgary Flames and Ben Chiarot to the Florida Panthers. In return, the Habs have acquired a couple of first round picks, a few interesting prospects and a couple of late round picks as well.

There have been a few other trades around the NHL recently and they all suggest Hughes needs to be very active in the next few days.

Hughes has mentioned in recent interviews that he is not against trading players like Artturi Lehkonen and Brett Kulak, but he is open to listening. Since he has made those comments, we have seen a couple of jaw dropping returns for sellers around the league.

First of all, the Chiarot trade shows that there was someone willing to pa a steep price for a defenceman in the final year of his contract. These rental defenders are always in demand, but sometimes the price is higher for players with more term on their contract.

We saw that play out when Brandon Hagel was traded from the Chicago Blackhawks to the Tampa Bay Lightning for two first round picks and a couple of NHL ready youngsters. It was a whopper for sure, but Hagel is signed for two more seasons with a small cap hit of $1.5 million.

However, the rental market has also exploded in the past few days.

First, Calle Jarnkrok was traded by the Seattle Kraken to the Calgary Flames. Jarnkrok is a Pending UFA who scores about half a point per game, is good defensively (not Lehkonen good, but good) and can play centre if needed.

The Flames gave up second, third and seventh round picks for Jarnkrok which is not terrible value, but a bit high for a guy who will play on the team’s third line.

Yesterday, the market really blew up for rentals.

Hampus Lindholm is a really good defenceman who was dealt from the Anaheim Ducks to the Boston Bruins. He will probably play on the team’s top pairing, is good defensively and good offensively, but not phenomenal at either end. He has 22 points in 61 games and is fine in his own end but he won’t be winning the Norris Trophy.

He is also a pending UFA but that didn’t scare of the Bruins. They offered up a first round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, a second round pick in 2023, a second round pick in 2024 and young defenceman Urho Vaakanainen, as well as John Moore to balance out salaries.

That is quite a haul for a defenceman who could be a free agent in a couple months.

A much smaller trade from yesterday also showed the value of a rental player. The Ducks traded fourth line winger, and former Montreal Canadiens forward Nicolas Deslauriers to the Minnesota Wild for a third round pick.

A third round pick isn’t an enormous amount to give up in a trade, but for a tough, fourth line winger with ten points in 61 games. Deslauriers is a hard nosed playoff type player but is also a fourth line winger who will barely play ten minutes per night.

It really begs the question, if that former Habs winger is worth that much, how much are their current rentals worth?

Brett Kulak certainly won’t have the value that Lindholm did, but similar to Deslauriers he is the type of big defender who can bring value in a lengthy playoff series. He isn’t flashy or an offensive wizard, but he can play safe, defensive minutes and use his size to win battles.

It is hard to compare a left winger to a defenceman, but if a depth winger like Deslauriers is worth a third, isn’t Kulak worth as much? Or maybe a third and a fifth or something like that? If so, Hughes needs to move him, take the picks and run.

Same with Chris Wideman. He is an offensive minded right shot defender, but could go help a team as their third pairing right defender and second unit power play quarterback. He isn’t getting a big return, but a good team with a bad power play might offer up a fifth round pick.

It would be hard to get anything for other pending UFAs like Mathieu Perreault and Cedric Paquette considering they both recently passed through waivers.

But the big rental here is Artturi Lehkonen. Yes, he is a RFA at season’s end and not a UFA. But he can be a UFA if the team that acquires him wants him to be. They just don’t have to give him a qualifying offer at the end of the season. They could either negotiate a longer term contract or just let him walk.

It appears that the cap flexibility that comes with letting a player walk at season’s end has a lot of value. That means Lehkonen has a lot of value. The fact he is an elite defensive player who is on pace for 40 points for the first time in his career means he has an incredible amount of value.

Again, comparing the value of one player’s trade to another is hard. Brandon Hagel is a much different situation that Lehkonen. He is signed long term at an extremely low cap hit which gives him a ton of value. Plus, he already has 21 goals this season at the age of 23.

Lehkonen is 26 years old and is on pace for about 20 goals this season but has never reached that in his career. He has been scoring at about the same rate as Jarnkrok this season, but is a better defensive option.

So, Lehkonen’s value is somewhere between the second and third and seventh that Jarnkrok went for and the two first round picks and two prospects that Hagel fetched in return.

What’s that make Lehkonen’s value? A first and a decent prospect? A first and a second?

As much as all of us Habs fans love Lehkonen, if a team out there is willing to offer up a first round pick and a good prospect, Hughes needs to take it. Prices are high for sellers right now and if a team is willing to meet that high price for Lehkonen, the Canadiens can’t hesitate.

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