Jonathan Drouin - Photo credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images

When the Montreal Canadiens traded Mikhail Sergachev to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Jonathan Drouin, fans and management alike thought the search for a number one center was over. The Habs brass was so convinced that it immediately signed Drouin to a six-year pact worth $33 M.

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The Drouin as a center experiment failed miserably in Montreal, in his first season, he gathered 46 points but finished the season with a minus-28 rating. A playmaker at heart (there’s a column on the right of the goal column as he told a journalist a couple of years ago), he was not responsible enough defensively to be used as a pivot. Even worse, he only had a 42% success rate at the faceoff dot.

The Canadiens moved him to the wing, hoping to get the best offensive production from the forward. However, he could never score more than 53 points and never played an entire 82-game season.

Through six seasons in Montreal, he played 321 out of a possible 455 games (the Canadiens played 71 games because of the pandemic in 2019-20 and 56 games in the shortened season that featured the Canadian division), only 71% of the games played.

Plagued by wrist injuries and mental health issues, Drouin played out his contract in Montreal and signed with the Colorado Avalanche as a free agent before the 2023-24 campaign. He reunited with his junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon and had a career high in points, with 56 in his first campaign near the Rocky Mountains. Playing in 79 games on a $825,000 contract, he gave Colorado its money’s worth.

A free agent again last Summer, he decided to stay with the Avalanche and signed a one-year deal with a $2.5 M cap hit. Unfortunately for Drouin, the injury ninja figured out where to find him. He has been limited to just 28 games this season, but he has 25 points. That’s a 73 points projected on 82 games. He would have been a fan favourite had he managed to do that in Montreal.

Unfortunately for the fans and Drouin himself, he didn’t have the same type of linemates in Montreal as in Colorado, and the pressure level was different. In Montreal, his contract meant that he should be “THE guy,” but in Colorado, he’s one of the guys and not the team's stars.

Not to rub salt in the wound, but Drouin is not the only former Canadiens who is thriving in Colorado. Artturi Lehkonen, who was a regular in the Habs' bottom six, became top-six material in Denver. He’s also dealt with many injuries, but he won the Stanley Cup with the Avs, scoring the cup-winning goal and signing a 5-year contract with a $4.5 M cap hit.

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