The plan was to trade Kirby Dach, but Kent Hughes didn’t have a successful summer

To say that Kent Hughes had a quiet summer is an understatement.

At the end of June, the Canadiens' GM had expressed confidence that he would complete a trade or bring a big name to Montreal over the summer. I've been feeling it every night for the past week: the summer is coming to an end.

Two weeks ago, Louis Jean reported that the Canadiens' front office had done everything it could to trade Samuel Montembeault but had been unable to find a taker.

In short, Kent Hughes tried to inject some talent into the offense (Dylan Larkin? Kirill Marchenko? Jordan Kyrou?) and attempted to trade Montembeault, but he failed to pull off anything (significant).

This morning, Renaud Lavoie went a step further on BPM Sports. According to Renaud, Kent Hughes's plan was likely to add talent to the team's offense and then trade a player like Kirby Dach afterward—or to acquire that talent directly.

“There are plenty of forwards on the Canadiens. I think this is an organization that may need to find a way to make a trade. If you'd told me back in May that Kirby Dach would be back in September, I would've said: Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. He'll be there because, I imagine, there were things that were supposed to happen over the summer, and unfortunately for Kent Hughes, they didn't.” – Renaud Lavoie

For several weeks, we've been following the Dach story because the Canadiens had extended him a two-part qualifying offer. Dach requested arbitration and reached an agreement before the hearing.

Except that we all understood—and we understand it even more clearly now after Renaud Lavoie's column this morning—that Dach is no longer really part of the Habs' plans. That he's still here more by default than anything else.

Should we draw the same parallel with Zachary Bolduc and Arber Xhekaj, two restricted free agents still without contracts whose roles with the Habs remain uncertain? Are they still here by default, too? We'll see.

Let's not forget that Kirby Dach has played in less than 50% of the Habs' games since joining the organization. A few months after his acquisition, people were wondering if he'd be able to challenge Nick Suzuki for the center spot on the first line. Today, I'm just wondering if he'll be able to stay healthy until American ThanksgivingChristmas.