NHL Trade Deadline: What Canadiens Are Left To Trade?

The NHL trade deadline looms, and the Montreal Canadiens has made two big trades so far. Tyler Toffoli was traded to the Calgary Flames for a first round pick, a fifth round pick, Emil Heineman and Tyler Pitlick; and Ben Chiarot was traded to the Florida Panthers for a first round pick, fourth round pick and Ty Smilanic.

Hindsight is 20/20, and it looks like Toffoli might have been moved a little bit early. But then again, this trade deadline has been really weird. Chiarot garnered a better return than Claude Giroux, and I know that Giroux had all of the power with his no-trade clause, but it still is a small return for the former captain of the Philadelphia Flyers. Not to mention the more direct comparison of the haul the Kraken got from Toronto for Mark Giordano: with Colin Blackwell for two second round picks and a third round pick.

And then Brendan Hagel is worth two first round picks alongside other picks. Nicolas Deslauriers is worth a third, and Hampus Lindholm is worth first, two seconds and Urho Vaakanainen. Remember last year when the Bruins got Taylor Hall with Curtis Lazar for a second round pick and Anders Bjork.

It looks like gas prices, because everyone is at least a little bit inflated, price-wise. Which seems good for the Montreal Canadiens, who are selling this trade deadline after a disastrous start to the season.

But who can Montreal get rid of?

Its very clear that Artturi Lehkonen’s value is through the roof. If Montreal was ever going to move Lehkonen, it would be now. Lehkonen has always been good defensively, or just in the realm of effort. He is up there with Brendan Gallagher in terms of effort and drive on every shift in my opinion. The only thing is that the offensive points have never been there.

Except for this year, where Lehkonen has 13 goals and 29 points this year. Its his second most goals (5 off of his career best in his rookie year) and points (31 in 2018-19). He proved he can come up big in the playoffs, and many playoff teams have been knocking on the door about Lehkonen. Hello Washington.

But then we come to the seller’s dilemma, and it is a unique one for the Montreal Canadiens this year. Usually, selling teams are bad because they are young and rebuilding. There are older players, players in their prime, that can still do well and be sold off, but the surrounding pieces are too young and too bad to make the team relevant.

That isn’t really true of the Montreal Canadiens. This team just went to the playoffs, and a decent chunk of that team is still around. Sure, there are the young players like Romanov, Caufield and Suzuki, but they are the better players on this team. But at the same time, they are the guys that you don’t trade for anything.

Because outside of Lehkonen, who can you really trade? Brendan Gallagher has been a shell of his former self, with 5 goals and 14 points this year. And even if he was having a better year, what are you going to get back for a player that’s 29 years old and just started a 6 year $39 million contract? The answer is not much.

What about Joel Armia? Armia might be younger and has a smaller contract, but has been even worse than Gallagher. Trading Armia now would be selling him at his lowest possible value. Waiting another year would burn a year of his 4 year contract, making him more valuable to teams. And he couldn’t have a year as bad as this one, right?

Jeff Petry is a really weird one. He absolutely hated Dominique Ducharme, and seemed like a lock to be out of town, at least in the offseason, as Petry still has 3 more years on his contract. But since Martin St. Louis has taken over, the negative comments have dried up, his play has improved and the points have come. If Petry is going to get moved, he will command quite the haul, and I don’t think that you can get that by the trade deadline.

Then there is the too injured to be of note. There was a lot of talk about Jake Allen being moved, but that was before he missed 3 months with injury and every single other Canadiens goaltender being injured. I don’t see any way that Allen is moved this deadline.

Joel Edmundson has just played 4 games this season (with 1 assist!), and is valuable enough to keep around. Montreal has a pretty good defensive prospect group with Fairbrother, Guhle, Xhekaj, Schueneman and Norlinder, so you don’t want to muck up the defense on the NHL level long term to keep these guys down, but Edmundson has proven himself to be a good defender and a great leader for the team.

Paul Byron might have earned quite a nice little haul in the past, but like Edmundson, Byron has only played 15 games and is 32 years old. He is also pricey for what he is, even at his best, with another full year at $3.4 million.

Jonathan Drouin is injured and will not get much looking at his production and the amount of cap hit he carries, not to mention his reputation of having a regular season game. Ditto with David Savard.

The only player I can think of possibly moving is Mike Hoffman, but even then it is a little bit of a struggle to think of it happening. Hoffman hasn’t had a terrible year statistically, 11 goals and 23 points. He might actually beat his goal total from last year in St. Louis (17). But Hoffman’s reputation of lacking defensively and in the effort department precedes him, and I don’t see a team that is going all in throwing much at Hoffman, who wouldn’t even be a rental.

And what else is there? Perrault, Kulak and Wideman? Maybe you could get some super deep draft picks for them, but that doesn’t really move the needle, and they would be pretty easily replaced either in the free agent market or by the young players coming up. Kulak is the most valuable of the three, but I don’t think he’s worth much.

Then there are the untouchables. We already know that Josh Anderson is going to stay. Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield are the backbone of this team and would not be moved for anything. Romanov is a step below those, but is still an important part of this team for years to come.

Don’t be surprised if the Montreal Canadiens have a quiet trade deadline. Unless they can somehow package Lehkonen and something like a first round pick for Alexis Lafreniere, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the big moves were done.