There was a funny moment during Tony Marinaro’s interview with Canadiens GM Kent Hughes Tuesday on Marinaro’s new Le Forum show on the French radio station BPM Sports.
It was Marinaro’s second day on his new job after leaving the English TSN 690 station two years ago to focus on The Sick Podcast With Tony Marinaro, which he continues to work on. Marinaro and Hughes both speak very good French, but neither of them knew how to translate “asset accumulation,” which had them both chuckling along with the BPM Sports on-air producers.
The direct Google translation is “accumulation d’actifs.”
Whether you say it in English or French, asset accumulation is paramount to success when rebuilding a team in the salary-capped NHL and Hughes and Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, have done an outstanding job with that since being put in charge of the Canadiens less than three years ago.
Hughes noted that there’s a balance in rebuilding a team and that it’s not done in a month or in a year. Hughes noted that he and Gorton are two-and-a-half years into the rebuild and they haven’t got where they want to be yet. Hughes said that asset accumulation was a key — especially at the beginning of the rebuild.
Hughes said the Canadiens have now reached a new phase where they can think about what they have and what they need moving forward.
What they need most moving forward is more goal-scoring forwards and that’s why Hughes acquired Patrik Laine from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Aug. 19. But that trade was another example of asset accumulation — or accumulation d’actifs.
As much as I admire defenceman Jordan Harris — both as a hockey player and as one of the nicest young men I have ever met — the Canadiens probably didn’t have a spot for him on their blue line this season with Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux both looking ready to make the jump to the NHL. The Canadiens will also need to eventually make room for defenceman David Reinbacher, the No. 5 overall pick at last year’s NHL Draft who will probably play for the AHL’s Laval Rocket this season. That’s also why Hughes traded Johnathan Kovacevic to the New Jersey Devils on June 30 in exchange for a fourth-round pick at the 2026 NHL Draft.
A Harris for Laine trade — one-for-one — would have been a good deal for the Canadiens, who are hoping the Finnish forward can regain the form that saw him have back-to-back seasons of 44 and 30 goals for the Winnipeg Jets back in 2017-18 and 2018-19. Laine also averaged almost a point per game with the Blue Jackets over the course of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons with 48-60-108 totals in 111 games. Last season, Laine was limited to 6-3-9 totals in 18 games before suffering a broken left clavicle during a game in mid-December that required surgery, and he then entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program in January while dealing with mental-health issues.
Hughes’s ability to manage the salary cap — another key to rebuilding — is a big reason why he was able to acquire Laine since the Canadiens were the only team interested in him who were able to take on his entire contract with an $8.7-million cap hit for the next two seasons. That’s probably why Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell was also willing to give up a second-round pick at the 2026 NHL Draft as part of the deal.
The Canadiens now hold two first-round picks, two second-round picks and three third-round picks for next year’s draft and one first-round pick and two second-round picks in 2026.
In the three NHL Drafts since Hughes became GM the Canadiens have had 30 picks. That includes five picks in the first round (Ivan Demidov and Michael Hage in 2024, Reinbacher in 2023, and Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar in 2022), two in the second round (Owen Beck and Hutson in 2022) and five in the third round (Aatos Koivu and Logan Sawyer in 2024, goalie Jacob Fowler in 2023, and Vinzenz Rohrer and Adam Engstrom in 2022).
The NHL Draft can be a crapshoot, but the more picks you have — especially in the first three rounds — the better the chances of improving your team. Hughes was able to get two first-round picks in two trades he made involving Sean Monahan — one at next year’s draft and one he used this year as part of a trade with the Los Angeles Kings to move up from No. 26 to No. 21 to get Hage, a player the Canadiens really coveted. Hughes also acquired the first-round pick used to select Mesar when he traded Tyler Toffoli to the Calgary Flames.
The Canadiens were able to draft Hutson with the second-round pick (62nd overall) Hughes acquired from the Edmonton Oilerswhen he traded Brett Kulak.
Hughes told Marinaro Canadiens management hasn’t set a goal that they absolutely have to make the playoffs this season, but they did speak about “being in the mix.”
“Management’s objective was to improve the offence,” Hughes said. “We’re really happy with the draft, we’re happy that we added Patrik Laine, but we’re far from finishing our work.”