If the Montreal Canadiens go big game hunting ahead of the deadline, they'll have to be ready to sacrifice some good assets and not just spare parts.
With the trade deadline fast approaching, trade rumours are swirling around the NHL. For the Montreal Canadiens, one move that seems to be written in the stars is unloading Patrik Laine and his contract (while using one of their three retention spots to make the cap hit easier to absorb for the team that acquires him). Aside from that move, the Habs don’t look like a team that absolutely needs to move before the Friday deadline. They are in third place in the Atlantic Division with 75 points, six points clear of the ninth-place team in the Eastern Conference.
However, if there’s a player out there that makes sense for the Habs’ brass, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kent Hughes pounce. The Canadiens have a lot of good young players, plenty of prospects, and eight draft picks in the upcoming draft, according to Puckpedia (they have a pick per round except for the fourth and seventh, when they have two, and the fifth, where they have none).
For quite some time now, we’ve heard the Canadiens want to acquire a second-line center, an objective they couldn’t accomplish last offseason, which led to Finnish rookie Oliver Kapanen inheriting the role between Ivan Demidov and Juraj Slafkovsky. The 22-year-old right-shot center has 31 points in 59 games and is currently fourth in the rookie scoring race and third in rookie goal scoring with 18 lamplighters, two behind leader Matthew Schaefer and one behind Beckett Sennecke.
Kapanen is having a great season and has exceeded expectations; he’s even a regular on the Canadiens’ penalty kill, and his stock rose at the Olympics when he was parachuted from the role of 13th forward for Team Finland to that of a first-line winger after Mikko Rantanen had to miss the final. He was held off the scoresheet, but he was very visible and did all the right things.
Should a more established second-line center become available on the trade market this week, it’s not impossible that the young Finn could be part of the package needed to acquire him. If the kind of player the Canadiens have been looking for for so long is there for the taking and fits in with the Habs’ core age-wise, it wouldn’t be shocking if Hughes and Jeff Gorton were willing to sacrifice the rookie to acquire that piece.
After all, they did move Emil Heineman to obtain Noah Dobson last offseason. Granted, Heineman didn’t have numbers as impressive as Kapanen's, but he did have 17 points in 41 games before being hit by a car in Salt Lake City and missing over a month of action. After his return, he only got one point in his last 21 games. Still, the first half of his season was impressive enough to catch Mathieu Darche’s eye, and the New York Islanders GM made his inclusion a sine qua non condition in the Dobson trade.
Kapanen is of the same ilk, a diamond in the rough that’s intriguing to other teams and has some untapped potential. This is the kind of player you must sacrifice when your trading partner is providing you with what you consider a missing piece in your puzzle. If the puzzle piece is highly sought after, it typically takes a package that includes a combination of roster players, picks, and prospects, a package more attractive than what other teams are offering. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, as they say.
While some would like the GM to go out and get the more experienced second-line center the Canadiens need by trading away the likes of Kirby Dach and David Reinbacher, it’s important to remember that if a player has proven to be injury-prone for one team, other teams have that information as well. They won’t let go of the better assets for a coin flip on a player’s potential and health.
I don’t expect Kapanen to be moved before the deadline, but if the Canadiens were to make a significant move, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to be sacrificed, along with some picks and prospects. The truth of the matter is, you must give something to get something.
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