Montreal Canadiens Rumour: Habs Not Interested In Trading Jake Allen

The Montreal Canadiens have a lot of balls in the air at the moment. A team that finishes last and has a lot of highly paid players probably should have a lot of irons in the fire so to speak.

It sure sounds like the Canadiens and general manager Kent Hughes do. Rumours have been running wild that they have veterans like Jeff Petry on the trade block, Josh Anderson is attracting interest and Mike Hoffman could be dealt as well. This, after Shea Weber was traded to kickoff the offseason.

It appears one player that is unlikely to be dealt is Jake Allen. Elliotte Friedman, perhaps the top insider in the game of hockey, mentioned in his 32 Thoughts article that the Canadiens have a few veterans on the trade market, but not Allen.

After he mentions that the Canadiens are testing the market on their veterans, including Petry, Anderson and Christian Dvorak, “there are teams that believe they do not want to move Jake Allen.”

It makes sense that they would want to keep Allen. This isn’t a video game where teams just trade away all of their veterans and win 12 games in an effort to get the first overall pick. Hughes will want to build a winning culture and a competitive nature amongst his team. Even if the playoffs aren’t the end goal next season, competing in games, building a team work ethic and putting together winning strategies on the ice are of the utmost importance.

With Carey Price’s healthy status still up in the air, trading Allen would lead to a season of Sam Montembeault and possibly Cayden Primeau playing every night. We saw how that worked out last season when both were pulled numerous times and the organization had to dust off The Hamburglar to start a few games.

That’s not how NHL organizations are typically run. Allen is a veteran with one year left on his contract and could very well be dealt at the trade deadline next season. But it doesn’t make sense to do it now and go in to next season with no healthy proven goalies if Price can’t play.

So, there should be plenty of movement on the Habs roster this offseason, but don’t expect Allen to be part of it, at least not until Price returns from injury.

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