Kent Hughes would never turn down a first-round pick for Josh Anderson

The March 8 trade deadline (next Friday) is fast approaching, and we’re likely to see some big moves considering the various names on the market right now.

On the Montreal Canadiens’ side, however, we shouldn’t necessarily expect much action, given that THE player with value the Habs had to trade was Sean Monahan.

He is now a member of the Winnipeg Jets.

Aside from Sean Monahan, the Habs don’t really have any valuable players to trade at the moment.

Yes, David Savard is generating interest across the NHL, but the Habs don’t necessarily want to trade him, unless they get an offer that can’t be refused.

And as for Jake Allen, well… not sure he has any value.

In short, the Habs don’t really have any players to trade, even if they do have several players they’d like to part with, like Brendan Gallagher, Joel Armia and Josh Anderson.

In Anderson’s case, it’s pretty crazy to think that he’s gone from a guy that a bunch of teams dreamed of adding to their lineup to a guy who’s completely lost, with no confidence, and who hasn’t scored a goal in his last 15 games.

And to think that rumors suggested at the time that the Habs were receiving incredible offers for the power forward.

But now we learn that the Habs would never have turned down a first-round pick for Anderson.

My impression is that the @CanadiensMTL have no intention of deviating from their plan for the trade deadline. https://t.co/g94J9083HA

– Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) March 2, 2024

Indeed, that’s what Renaud Lavoie thinks.

So, if Kent Hughes never turned down a first-round pick for Anderson, that would mean he never received an offer that included such a choice.

And yet, the rumours at the time were that several teams were prepared to offer the Habs a lot for the services of Josh Anderson.

Were these rumours false or exaggerated?

Perhaps.

What is certain, however, is that the Habs forward no longer has the value he once had.

His seven goals and 16 points in 56 games are of no interest to anyone, especially not with the $5.5 million annual salary that comes with them for three more seasons after this one.

In the end, this news, if true, allows us to breathe a sigh of relief that Hughes didn’t necessarily pass up an offer that included a first-round pick at the time for his power forward.

However, there’s nothing to say that Hughes wouldn’t have turned down a very tempting offer including one or more solid young players.

In short, Anderson is still a member of the Montreal Canadiens, and we hope he’ll be able to perform better from next season onwards.

In a gust

– Andrei Vasilevskiy will face the Habs tonight.

– A full non-movement clause for Elias Pettersson.

– Here are the other details of his contract.

– Pettersson will be the NHL’s 5ᵉ highest paid player in 2024-2025.

– A slight improvement this season for Bogdan Konyushkov.