3 Trades To Make Montreal Canadiens And New Jersey Devils Better
The Montreal Canadiens are coming off a magical run to the Stanley Cup Final. Carey Price was great, the defense was able to shut down teams like the Vegas Golden Knights and Toronto Maple Leafs, and the teams scored just enough to win it to represent Canada with a chance to win the country’s first Cup since 1993, the last time the Canadiens themselves won the Cup. They came up short, and this offseason is going to be a tough one for the Canadiens.
Montreal has a decent amount of cap space with just over $14 million to spend on its free agents and to build their own team. They will get a little bit more when they have someone head to the Seattle Kraken. However, That’s with just eight forwards signed. One of them is Jonathan Drouin who played exactly zero playoff games for the Canadiens this season. They need to sign or call up at least five forwards. Even on $900,000 contracts, that leaves the Canadiens with less than $10 million left. It’s highly unlikely they replace some of these players with minimum guys, too.
The New Jersey Devils and Montreal Canadiens could be good trade partners.
The very interesting contract they will have to sign is Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He was having a decent season, and he even had himself a decent postseason before he was unceremoniously benched in the Stanley Cup Final. There’s no way he’s going to accept a small raise. He is going to ask the Canadiens to pay for future performance similar to how the New Jersey Devils paid Nico Hischier.
Speak of the Devils, these two teams are actually interesting pairs to help each other this offseason. The Canadiens want to improve its team as it sees players like Phillip Danault, Corey Perry, Joel Armia, Eric Staal, Tomas Tatar, Jon Merrill, and Erik Gustafsson become free agents. To actually get better, they need to make a few trades to build around the young players. The Devils have some younger players that could interest them.
Jonathan Drouin is a player that’s really hard to peg. He took a leave of absence back in April and never came back despite the Canadiens making a run to the Cup Final. Who knows if the Canadiens asked him to stay home to keep the chemistry or if this was Drouin’s choice. Either way, his value is nowhere near where it was the year before.
Drouin had a weird season on the ice. He only scored two goals in 44 games, but he still averaged half a point per game because he had 21 assists. That would have had him tied for second on the Devils in assists this season. It’s clear he is extremely skilled, and he is a former top-three pick that’s still just 26 years old. There is a lot left in the tank for Drouin, and the Devils could unlock him by just letting him play his game and build confidence.
The Canadiens aren’t getting great value for Drouin. Their best bet is to get an NHL talent in Nick Merkley, someone with high upside in Marian Studenic, another AHL prospect in AJ Greer, then a 2nd-round pick in this year’s NHL Draft. The Canadiens already have a lot of middle-round picks, but getting another lottery ticket is the key to finding the next Brayden Point or Nikita Kucherov.
This deal might not make the Canadiens on paper, but turning a missing Drouin into an interesting NHL player in Nick Merkley plus a few other pieces is the best they can do at this point. No, the Blues are not going to trade Vladimir Tarasenko for a star that was sent home or stayed home for the team’s most important postseason in 25 years.
The Montreal Canadiens have so much draft capital this year that it makes all the sense in the world to trade back into the first round of the NHL Draft. The issue is since they ended up going to the Final, their own pick is near the end of every round. In the second round, they have their own pick and the pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning. For those asking at home, that means it’s the final two picks of the round. The third-round picks the Canadiens have are from the Washington Capitals (originally part of the Brendan Dillon trade with the Sharks) and Chicago Blackhawks (Andrew Shaw trade).
The Canadiens need high-end talent, so they will likely call Tom Fitzgerald on draft day to see how they can make a deal happen. The Devils will originally want NHL talent for their 1st-round pick, but getting a ton of draft capital in what is quickly becoming a strange draft talent wise makes a lot of sense. This draft is weaker than last year’s draft, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t talent in the later rounds. Especially with the lack of scouting due to the pandemic, there are going to be first-round talents that fall to the second and third rounds.
So, since the Canadiens are asking the Devils to trade back an entire round out of the first, they need to pay handsomely for that. Fitzgerald will demand both of the Canadiens’ second-round picks, plus the Chicago Blackhawks’ third rounder. So, instead of getting pick number 28 in the draft, they get picks number 63, 64, and 76. It’s a big drop, but adding in the Devils pick at 61 and they can own this specific part of the draft. There is value in that.
Pavel Zacha is still one of the most polarizing Devils players on the team. He led the team in points last season, but many will point out his real contribution was on the power play and his advanced analytics aren’t anything to go home about. His CF% finished at 48.51%, which ranked 20th on the Devils (this includes part-time players like Kyle Palmieri and Dmitry Kulikov). Only P.K. Subban and Damon Severson were on the ice for more 5v5 goals against than Zacha, and that likely has more to do with Severson and Subban being on the ice for well over 150 more 5v5 minutes than Zacha. He watched more goals go in than Jack Hughes despite playing 225 fewer minutes (thanks for Natural Stat Trick for the numbers).
So, why would the Canadiens pay such a price for Zacha? Well, for one, the Devils wouldn’t tell the Canadiens about those stats. (I know they can find them themselves, just play along.)
Zacha does bring a lot of what the Canadiens like to the table. He’s a versatile forward who can play on every special teams unit. There’s a lot to build off of and he’s just 24 years old and has one year left on his contract at $2.25 million.
The Canadiens need cheaper, young talent that could turn into something really good. They have the blueline in pretty good shape with Alexander Romanov playing a role now. He is the Canadiens’ best young defenseman. They also have Jordan Harris, who is having a nice college career at Northwestern. This makes Kaiden Guhle a little more expendable.
Next. 5 Trades Involving 4th-overall pick. dark
Guhle has been described as a freak athlete. His strength is insane, and the Devils will drool at his ability to move people off the puck. He’s someone who can shut down a power play, and the Devils desperately need someone who can do that on the penalty kill. Guhle is someone we liked here last season, but the Canadiens took him earlier than we thought he would go. It’s possible that the Canadiens really like him, but they need forwards in a bad way. Zacha has a ton of value despite the analytics because he does so well on the power play and he’s contributing on a terrible Devils team. Adding in a second-round pick is insurance for the Devils and doesn’t hurt the Canadiens that much since it’s at the end of the round.