Pro scouting is what separates the top teams in the NHL from the copycats. It allows organizations to create trends instead of chasing them, and to confidently swap lotto-ticket futures for established NHL talent. The players on the ice have to fit under the salary cap, but there is no salary cap for off-ice skill and insight.
That is the arms race between the absolute cream of the crop in the NHL and pro sports in general. You'll hear analysts talk about organizations finding value in the margins, scooping up hidden gems where others just see minor league roster fillers.
The Montreal Canadiens owe a large portion of their current success to their scouting departments, and they owe an odd sort of gratitude to the Columbus Blue Jackets for not recognizing what they had in two players at two different times in the team's checkered history of player evaluations.
Josh Anderson trade pays off for Canadiens... eventually
There's a reason why former general manager Marc Bergevin was fired by the Canadiens. He overreacted to the team's unexpected run to the 2021, not recognizing that a rebuild was going to be necessary for sustained success. The kind of sustained success the Habs are set up for a half-decade later, mind you.
Part of that overreaction was trading for disgruntled Blue Jackets forward Josh Anderson. In hindsight, the cost of Max Domi and a third-round pick doesn't seem too steep, but at the time, it was seen as a high-stakes gamble by a team that really wasn't one or two pieces away from consistent contention. The contract extension offered to Anderson in the aftermath of the deal further complicated feelings about the trade.
Now back in the Eastern Conference Final again for the first time since that miraculous 2021 run, Anderson has somewhat ironically become one of the most important players for the Canadiens. Bergevin probably didn't envision his trade for the highly physical forward would take quite this long to pay off, but it has.
He's averaging more than 15 minutes a night, skating on a line that head coach Martin St. Louis largely leans on to shut down the opposition. Only five forwards in the postseason have a better on-ice goal differential than Anderson's seven; he has averaged more than two minutes a game on the penalty kill, and only eight forwards have more hits than he does in these playoffs.
Sometimes investments take a while to pay off, but Anderson and his third line have been critical to Montreal's playoff run so far. So has the guy who is playing on the opposite wing, who is also a former Blue Jacket, but took a bit of a more winding path to get there.
Alexandre Texier has seemingly found his NHL home in Montreal
The Blue Jackets made the best out of a tough situation with Alexandre Texier, and supported him during mental health leaves in the early 2020's. He returned to Switzerland in 2022 to be close to family and deal with personal losses. That extended into the 2022-23 season, when he decided to stay close to home to play out that year.
He returned to Columbus for the 2023-24 campaign, stating that he was in a much better place mentally and ready to resume playing in the NHL. After one more year in Ohio, the Blue Jackets decided to move on from Texier, trading his rights to the St. Louis Blues for a fourth-round pick. It seemed like a great buy-low move for St. Louis, but Texier never clicked while wearing the blue note. The organization bought out his contract when he refused to report to the AHL after clearing waivers.
Which brought him to Montreal, where he has seemingly (finally) found his hockey home, playing with a fast, young, and hungry Habs team. Texier doesn't bring the same physical element as Anderson, instead relying on his hockey IQ and foot speed to disrupt opponents. Along with Phillip Danault--another unheralded buy-low acquisition for the Canadiens--Montreal's third line has established itself as a destructively swift and disruptive force in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Thanks in no small part to the Blue Jackets moving on from two different players that Montreal, in two distinct ways, found value in.
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