Kent Hughes should take the day off Fri., March 7.
That is, of course, trade deadline day in the National Hockey League and my humble opinion is that the Canadiens general manager does not need to slave over a hot telephone desperately trying to make deals to unload the players who’re going to be free agents this summer.
That’s my opinion today. Now a week is a long time in politics and it’s also a long time in sports. Montreal has four games to play before the deadline, so obviously what you do March 7 will be determined by what happens in those games.
But right here, right now, hot off two convincing wins since returning from the 4 Nations break, the Habs are only five points out of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and thus it is entirely possible they could make the playoffs. It’s amusing to watch so many sports pundits do Cirque du Soleil-like contortions to explain mathematically why Montreal can’t possibly make it to the post-season.
But they’re wrong. They can. I’m not saying they will, but they can. Remember what happened with the Washington Capitals last year. They just snuck in and pretty well no one predicted that one. And guess what? They were five points out of the last wild-card berth at the trade deadline.
So keep the guys everyone thinks will be traded unless you get an offer you simply can’t refuse. My colleague Mathias Brunet over at La Presse published a good column Wednesday arguing you can never have too many draft picks, just confirming that Mathias loves draft picks more than pretty well anything in the world.
He has a point. Sure you can make deals trading second-round picks to move up in the draft order. Brunet points to the example at last year’s draft when Hughes traded a second-round pick in order to move up in the draft order from No. 26 to No. 21 in the first round and the result was nabbing Michael Hage, who looks to be a guy who’ll be mighty useful for the Habs moving forward. Hughes didn’t believe Hage would be available at No. 26.
But will you really get much in return for Jake Evans, Joel Armia, David Savard or Christian Dvorak? I don’t really think so. The best of the bunch obviously is Evans and consensus is he’s worth a second-round pick. And maybe he is.
On his show on BPM Radio on Wednesday, Tony Marinaro said the Evans clan is asking for five years at $4 million and that the Habs offer isn’t remotely in the same ballpark. So he won’t be re-signing with Montreal.
But if you trade Evans next week, you create a huge hole in your lineup and there’s no one there to fill it.
There is no one in Laval to bring up to do what Evans does, centring the fourth line and running the team’s excellent penalty kill, which was seventh-best in the league entering Wednesday night’s play.
In short, trade Evans and you almost certainly ain’t making the playoffs. Now you can argue there’s no point to fighting for the playoffs this year because Montreal won’t be going deep. But to quote that great philosopher Marc Bergevin, once you’re in, anything can happen.
Of course they’re not winning the Cup, but it would be incredibly helpful for all of the young players to get a sniff at the post-season. Even one good competitive series would be great for key youngsters like Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovsky and Owen Beck. And it would be very good for Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Yeah they went all the way to the final in ’21, but they were kids. It would be huge for their development to get back there.
Arpon Basu from The Athletic floated the idea of packaging Evans and Armia together as a PK double-or-nothing sale, suggesting that might nab the CH a first-rounder, but I’m not convinced. I think we have a tendency in this city to overvalue our Habs players.
Over at a jam-packed McLean’s Pub Tuesday before the Hurricanes Canadiens game, opinion was divided on what Hughes should do come deadline day.
Simon Milette said they should try to maximize the assets they can get by trading older veterans “and use these assets at next year’s draft to get a key player, ideally maybe a second-line centre. All four of the players should be on the table and you’re probably going to trade one of the centres, either Evans or Dvorak. You’ll trade Savard for sure and Armia, it will depend on the offer because Armia could possibly be re-signed to play a similar role. The most likely to stay of any of them is Armia.”
Petra Zaholyi — one of four Hungarians having dinner at the pub before heading to the game — said the Habs can’t trade Evans.
“He’s my favourite player,” Zaholyi said.
“I would trade Dvorak and Armia,” said Boldi Balogh, her boyfriend. “And as hurtful as it is, if you get a good return for Evans, you trade him.”
The last word goes to my old friend Robbie Hart, with the noted documentary filmmaker sending this email Wednesday morning from Las Vegas, where he’s celebrating a friend’s “wild wedding”.
Writes Hart: “What the CH needs to do is exactly what management said they would do after 42 games and what they said before the season started. Let the guys play ‘meaningful’ hockey games and remain in the playoff conversation for as long as possible. The team proved they can win and play competitive hockey against the best teams and did it already once this season during that remarkable 18 game streak. Now they’ve returned post 4 Nations Cup en force with two strong wins and they’re in the MIX. Let them determine their own fate as Hughes said at the halfway mark. Developing a winning Stanley Cup contender requires meaningful hockey games. Keep the boys together.”