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Logan Mailloux: a limited market for his acquisition

 Andrew Taylor
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Logan Mailloux: a limited market for his acquisition
Credit: Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
As everyone knows, the Montreal Canadiens have a very good bank of prospects on hand right now, especially when it comes to defensemen.

The Habs have several good young defensemen who are exciting for the club’s future, and that’s part of the reason why the team’s fans have, for the most part, bought into the rebuilding plan sold by Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton.

If all goes well, the Tricolore shouldn’t have any problems on the blue line for several years.

The problem, however, is that the Habs have too many defensemen right now, and will have to choose which ones to keep, and which ones to sacrifice via trade.

Lane Hutson, David Reinbacher, Kaiden Guhle, Logan Mailloux, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, Justin Barron, Jayden Struble and Adam Engstrom clearly won’t all make the club.

And that’s without forgetting that there will most likely be veterans who will also be in the Habs’ defensive top-6.

In short, the Tricolore will have some major choices to make, and sooner rather than later.

Obviously, the first names that Habs fans and analysts would be willing to sacrifice are Jordan Harris and Justin Barron.

The problem is, if they’re so easy to part with, it’s because they’re not very valuable.

Logan Mailloux, for example, would be far more valuable, considering his potential.

However, there’s also a problem with Mailloux: should the Habs decide to sacrifice him and trade him, the market would be much more limited in his case.

Indeed, that’s what renowned The Athletic analyst and prospect expert Scott Wheeler said in response to a question on his recent Reddit page dedicated to the Montreal Canadiens.

Wheeler explained that the market would be more limited for Mailloux than for guys like Harris, Barron and Struble, even though Mailloux has more potential and more value.

Not every NHL team would be interested in Mailloux (most likely because of his past), and that hurts the Habs, who wouldn’t have the luxury of a ton of good offers.

If the market is limited, and only a few teams are interested in Mailloux, the value of the Habs prospect drops accordingly.

Even if Mailloux is probably the 2ᵉ or 3ᵉ best defensive prospect on the Habs, many NHL teams would be very reluctant to acquire him via trade, let alone for a big price that Kent Hughes would surely demand.

In short, Mailloux’s past limits the options available to the Habs general manager.

Should Kent Hughes and his team decide that Mailloux is the young defenseman they want to sacrifice and trade to improve their offense, well, the options will be limited.

Mailloux was the choice of Marc Bergevin’s former management, and therefore not that of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton, which could very well weigh in the balance compared to a Justin Barron who was acquired by Hughes.

In short, it will be very interesting to follow developments regarding the Habs’ congestion of young defensemen, as things are likely to get moving this summer, even as early as the draft on June 28 and 29.


In a gust

– Not to be missed today.

– A good start for Sweden.

– Read more.

– The highs and lows of being a sports team fan.

– Coming up.

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