While the Montreal Canadiens organization honoured former blueliner Andrei Markov before the game against the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday night, they also made the night of the team’s players’ wives and girlfriends.

The ladies watched the game from a private box and were the guest of Kate Molson, team owner Geoff Molson’s wife, who also had a special gift for each of them. A bracelet featuring the team logo and their significant other’s number.

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Daryanne Ayote, Alexa Dobson, Emma Fortin and Katya Yakovleva all took to Instagram to showcase the gift they had just received. Ayotte captioned one of her photos with the mention “best organization”, a sentiment that has already been expressed in the past and while that may not seem that important to fans, this is the kind of little acts of kindness that gets talked about around the league.

Making Montreal a destination of choice for free agents does start with icing a competitive team and having some of the best training installations around the league but taking care of the players’ families also go a long way. Just last week, the team hosted its traditional family skate and had a Santa on hand for the little ones.

This is especially important when targeting experienced players who are often family man who come to town with a family and while younger players may value other things more, vets tend to think about their family first and knowing they will be well taken care of can make a difference for a player weighting in his options.

This season, the Canadiens have an increased focus on results, starting to move away from the developmental phase of their rebuild and as the team progresses, and its window to contend for the Stanley Cup open, GM Kent Hughes is bound to go big game hunting to complete his lineup, especially when a few big contracts will expire.

Brendan Gallagher, Josh Anderson and Alex Carrier’s contracts are all set to expire at the end of the 2026-27 season and that will clear up $15,750,000 in cap space. In an ideal world, building through the draft and following the process would guide you to the Stanley Cup, but you can’t draft a Stanley Cup winner, if you want your team to benefit from their experience, you need to go outside of the organization to get them.

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