Skip to content
Your daily dose of hockey
News

“The Canadian team will be sellers at the trade deadline.”
Raphael Simard
“The Canadian team will be sellers at the trade deadline.”
Credit: Getty Images
For a good month and a half, Canadiens fans dreamed of the playoffs and a trade deadline where Kent Hughes would not sell.

But for the past few weeks, hopes have gone up in smoke, as the CH no longer wins.

I mentioned last week, we need to pull out Tankathon. And at the time of writing these lines, Montreal is just five points away from being in the top-5 teams with the best chances of winning the lottery.

(Credit: Tankathon )
No, the CH will not be buyers.

They will be sellers. According to Vincent Damphousse, there is no doubt about it.

David Savard, Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak, and Jake Evans will all be unrestricted free agents at the end of the season.

Aside from Dvorak, the other three all have great value and could definitely change teams by March 7.

We know that the Oilers are in the running for Savard’s services and that Armia and Evans could be traded together for a big return. Would Hughes prefer to sign a guy like Evans for the medium or long term, however? That remains an option, as at 28 years old, he’s not too old and could very well help the team.

I am one of those who would like to see Armia back in Montreal, but he will want a nice salary increase (deserved) and the Canadiens will not be the team to offer him more than $3.4 million per year.

Dvorak, on the other hand, will not be back and unless there’s a surprise, I don’t believe any team will want to pay to acquire his services. The Montreal management could retain 50% of his salary, but that remains to be seen. Because even at 50% of his salary, #28 isn’t worth much.

Three of the four players will definitely not be returning to the metropolis next year. Might as well trade them for something small instead of losing them anyway on July 1, right? And by trading them, it will make room for the young players and improve the team’s chances of drafting one last major prospect before better days ahead.


In a nutshell

– Must listen.

– The Canadiens have three (Samuel Montembeault, Patrik Laine, and Joel Armia).

– Well done.

– It starts well.

– Congratulations.

facebook icon Share twitter icon Tweet linkedin icon Share
Copied!
More Content