Montreal Canadiens: Should Habs Swap Young Defenseman For Young Forward?

If you look at the young nucleus of the Montreal Canadiens, there is an obvious and glaring need for more firepower at the top of the lineup. Should general manager Kent Hughes be actively searching for another young offensive minded forward to add to his core right away or should he remain patient?

Even before the season ending injury to Kirby Dach, the team seemed to be a bullet short in the revolver and it’s only gotten worse. Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have performed reasonably well but Alex Newhook, despite his two point night against Vegas, looks more third liner than second liner and the Juraj Slafkovksy breakout has not happened.

What the Canadiens do have is a surplus of young talent on defense that has been showing out as Kaiden Guhle, Justin Barron, Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekaj all continue to make strides. It makes all the sense in the world to trade from a position of strength to address a position of weakness, so it’s not really a question of if but when.

I think management’s outlook going into the season was to allow their five best young forwards, Suzuki, Caufield, Dach, Newhook and Slafkovsky, to continue their development by growing into their roles together. While 17 games in might be a bit early to pull the plug on the plan altogether, perhaps it can tweaked to avoid a lost opportunity.

If things had gone smoothly, it’s reasonable to assume that Hughes would be looking to make a transaction like this next offseason anyway. Ideally all the forwards mentioned above would have continued to get better, allowing the GM to add another ingredient to the mix.

Working under that assumption, would it not make sense to make the move now and allow a newly acquired age appropriate player the same opportunity to grow with the club? Dach could then be the added puzzle piece when he rejoins the club next year.

I think it would be in the Canadiens interest to kick tires on the availability of players like Trevor Zegras of the Ducks or Alexandre Texier of the Blue Jackets among others to explore if a match can be made.

Obviously Zegras is a higher ceiling player as a former ninth overall pick, so the pot would need to be sweetened. A package that includes one of the young defensemen on the Habs current roster, a high grade prospect and/or an early round draft pick could be enough to make a deal possible and we all know how much Hughes likes the 2019 draft!

The price of acquisition for Texier, a former second round pick in 2017, would be significantly lower given his history and he could also be an intriguing option.

Hughes is a patient man and could wait until the deadline to make moves but those deals are usually UFA’s being traded for picks and prospects, rarely are good young NHL-ready players changing hands.

So why wait another year when you have some runway here to bring somebody in and have them get acclimated to your team sooner. I believe it could be very beneficial and won’t come at the expense of proper team building. It simply allows for both position groups to grow simultaneously and create more balance throughout the roster.

The Habs can’t keep relying on veterans like Sean Monahan that are not part of their long term plan, the onus has to be on acquiring more young skill players to carry the offensive load into the future. They say patience is a virtue and while that may true it’s also been said that he who hesitates is lost, the answer for Hughes is probably somewhere in between.

Want your voice heard? Join the A Winning Habit team!

Write for us!