There is no question that fans were disappointed to see Kirill Marchenko traded after the Montreal Canadiens seemingly were chasing him all summer. General manager Kent Hughes wasn't able to get the deal done, but it certainly wasn't due to a lack of trying, according to NHL insider Elliotte Friedman.
"I heard that Montreal was trying to be really creative," Friedman said on a recent episode of 32 Thoughts. "I think they were trying to involve other teams. I'm not 100% sure if they were trying to get other teams to take one of these extra Columbus guys or they were trying to take a player from another team and put them in Columbus."
Friedman also mentioned in the episode that he heard all the way back in July that Marchenko would sign in Montreal but wasn't as interested in Toronto. Based on that, it was obvious that both sides had mutual interest, but the biggest holdup was that the Canadiens didn't have the pieces that the Blue Jackets wanted.
General manager Don Waddell made it clear that he wanted NHL-ready players and didn't want to rebuild. He certainly got that in Matthew Knies, and the Canadiens didn't have any players they were willing to give up on at that level.
Montreal Canadiens smart to not meet Blue Jackets trade demands
A comparable player in that situation would likely have been Juraj Slafkovsky, and the Canadiens shouldn't even be considering moving him. The Canadiens would have found themselves in the same situation because Marchenko would have essentially replaced Slafkovsky with an AAV that is almost double. Shortly after being traded by the Blue Jackets, Marchenko signed a six-year extension with an AAV of $12.5 million
Any major trade the Canadiens pull off is almost certainly going to be headlined by prospects and picks. For Hughes, it seemed like the task was finding a player similar to Matthew Knies elsewhere in the league and a general manager who was willing to move him for future assets.
In the end, Kent Hughes' approach didn't work out for them, and they saw Marchenko traded to a division rival. However, they are willing to be patient and not make a trade just for the sake of making a trade. The Canadiens are not in a position where they need to be desperate, and with all the trade pieces they still have, they are certain to find a deal that works for them.
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