Grading Kent Hughes a year later on the Montreal Canadiens

On January 19th, 2021, Kent Hughes was hired as the 18th general manager in Montreal Canadiens history. It’s now been a year since his hiring, and Hughes was a very busy man during that time. Just a few months after his hiring, he was tasked with handling the trade deadline, where for the first time in a long time, the Habs were legitimate sellers. Then he had the NHL Draft to deal with, where the Canadiens picked first overall for the first time since 1980. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg for him.

As is often the case for a General Manager, it’s been nonstop action for Hughes, and with yet another trade deadline just on the horizon, that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. But there will be plenty of time to do that in the coming weeks, but today, we’re going to look back at the last year, and take a closer look at the job Kent Hughes has done.

The list of things Kent Hughes has done is actually quite long, and it can actually be difficult to pinpoint who exactly is responsible for what. In the previous regime, Marc Bergevin served as both the GM and Vice President of Hockey Operations. Now, that job has been divided into two separate roles, one obviously served by Hughes, and the other by Jeff Gorton.

As a result, not every decision could necessarily be Kent Hughes’ idea, as some may be Jeff Gorton’s.  However, seeing as they work in tandem, it seems fair to give both men credit for these moves instead of trying to decipher who deserves credit for each decision.

Montreal Canadiens: The Hirings

This is where I suspect Jeff Gorton’s influence on the organization is most likely, not even necessarily because of who has been hired, but more so the roles that have been filled. Obviously, when talking about people the Canadiens have hired, nobody stands out more than the head coach Martin St. Louis.

Obviously, his impact has been very noticeable, turning Cole Caufield into the elite goal scorer everyone thought he could become. St. Louis has had some rough patches, but seeing as he’s quite literally very new to coaching, and the Habs roster is, well not great, he’s done a pretty solid job. But the list is much deeper and much more impactful than just St. Louis.

In my opinion, the most interesting hire the Habs made was hiring a skills coach, a role that didn’t really exist previously. The Habs brought in Adam Nicholas very early in the process, although his official title is the director of hockey development.

It’s no secret that the Canadiens have struggled to develop talent over the last decade at least, and with Nicholas hiring, it showed a larger commitment to making improvements in that area. And that was only further proven true when they hired Canadian Hockey legend Marie-Philip Poulin as a Player Development Consultant and Vincent Lecavalier as a Special Advisor to Hockey Operations.

The Canadiens also hired Christopher Boucher as their Director of Hockey Analytics in an effort to modernize the way the organization thinks. All in all, these hirings are not just great to see because of the people they hired, although the names are significant, but more so because of what they represent.

A lot of these roles either didn’t exist or were just not taken seriously enough under the old regime. And well these hires don’t guarantee success, it’s hard to view them as anything but positive developments. The jury is still out on a lot of these hires to be completely honest, in large part because their impacts are more long-term effects than they are immediate impacts, but I like their chances of becoming big successes.

Montreal Canadiens: The NHL Draft

The most notable thing Kent Hughes has done might be drafting first overall. Specifically, drafting first overall in a year where there wasn’t a “consensus” #1 prospect like there often is. The Canadiens selected Juraj Slafkovsky with the first pick, and well his numbers aren’t anything to brag about, he’s the only player from his class that played more than 9 games this season. Much like the hirings Hughes and Co. made, we won’t know exactly how good of a job he did until much later, but the early returns seem to be quite good.

In addition to Slafkovsky, the Habs selected fellow Slovak Filip Mešár with the 26th overall pick, Owen Beck with the 33rd, and my personal favourite pick of the draft, Lane Hutson at 62. Hutson in particular is tearing up the NCAA as a true freshman, putting up 22 points in 20 games as of writing this.

For reference, Cale Makar put up 21 points in 34 games as a true freshman. Now I’m not saying Hutson will become the next Makar, but rather just showing that it isn’t an easy feat by any stretch. And when you watch him play, it becomes very apparent the Habs haven’t had a player quite like him, in a very long time.

Only time will truly tell how these players will pan out, but there is a lot to be encouraged about, and for a first draft from the new regime, you have to like how things are looking. With Mešár and Beck, their numbers don’t exactly jump off the page, but we got to see just how skilled they were in pre-season, where they looked very comfortable.

Both Beck and Mešár are incredibly smart hockey players who look to have very bright futures as well. So that should be chalked up as a win for Hughes, now it just becomes about development, which again refers back to the hires he made, and highlights their importance.

Montreal Canadiens: The Trades

The draft may have been the most important part of Kent Hughes’ job thus far, but the job he’s done via trading has been the most impressive so far. First and foremost, Hughes has made quite a few trades, which has shown fans that he is not afraid to use the trade market if he believes it will help his team win, and as of right now, that has mainly meant trading proven assets for futures, with one notable exception. This really isn’t all that different than Marc Bergevin, who was constantly making moves on the trade front. Where the two differ is what they value.

Marc Bergevin was the man in Montreal for 10 seasons, and while he made plenty of trades during that time, one thing remained true for almost his entire tenure. First-round picks were never on the menu, whether that meant acquiring one or trading it away. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Bergevin, there are several ways to build a team, but it’s really a unique strategy.

Most teams seem to want to acquire a first-round pick if they are likely to miss the playoffs, and playoff teams are obviously more willing to depart with their own first-round picks. Bergevin didn’t do either of those two things until the 2021 offseason, during his last few months on the job. He acquired a first-rounder via the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet and then traded the pick away (the pick was originally MTL, but was top-10 protected) less than an hour later for Christian Dvorak.

Kent Hughes does things a little differently. In his first year on the job, Kent Hughes acquired four first-round picks. One for Tyler Toffoli, one for Ben Chiarot, one for Alexander Romanov and one for acquiring Sean Monahan. Hughes has also already traded a first-round pick, sending the pick he received for Romanov to Chicago for Kirby Dach, a trade I think Canadiens fans enjoyed a lot.

This difference in philosophy is not guaranteed to lead to more success, but it is still very refreshing nonetheless. Habs fans can tell you that Bergevin’s strategy didn’t lead to enough success, and the hope is that Hughes can change that as the Habs rebuild wears on. With another trade deadline just a few months away, it’ll be very interesting to see what Kent Hughes has in store for Habs fans this go around.