The Canadiens Can Afford To Be Patient This Summer – Pro Hockey Rumors
There is no NHL team better positioned to become a dynasty than the Montreal Canadiens. That said, there is perhaps no fanbase more surprised by their front office this offseason than Canadiens fans, given the lack of movement in Montreal and the lack of urgency that could come across to some as indifference. Make no mistake, though, that indifference is patience, and Habs fans should be happy to see it from management at a time when most GMs would have made a move just to make one. Many folks in Montreal are probably wondering why general manager Kent Hughes hasn’t made the big move, but the real question should be, “Why would he make a big move right now?”
This summer has been a wild one thus far for many teams, as top-six forwards and top-four defensemen have been moved for massive hauls that are inflated returns compared to years past. Hughes has said the Canadiens have been in active trade discussions, as they were leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline, but much like early March, Montreal has been able to make any big moves. That should be encouraging for Canadiens fans, as it shows that their management is in this rebuild for the long haul and won’t simply make moves just to make them. Discipline is not commonplace in the NHL, as most GMs try to make moves for the here and now to pad their resumes, but Hughes seems to understand the opportunity in front of his team, and he has navigated it patiently, which is the best course of action.
What makes Montreal different from a team like Toronto, or some of the other more active teams, is that the Canadiens are just opening their window of contention and aren’t anywhere near a Stanley Cup-or-bust team. Their core of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov, and Lane Hutson is locked into team-friendly long-term deals and is quite young, which means Hughes doesn’t need to force a move that sacrifices premium future assets just to plug a hole in the here and now.
There is an argument to be made that many of the moves this summer have been overpays, particularly if you look at a deal like the Bowen Byram trade to Chicago. This was a huge gamble for the Blackhawks, and it’s easy to see why Hughes didn’t have interest in these types of trades. Hughes has talked about pursuing big trades in the past, but has walked away when the prices exceeded his comfort level. It’s easy to understand, with the core the Canadiens have, that Hughes wouldn’t want to force an overpay for a player in their 30s. This kind of thinking is antithetical to the types of general managers who make it their mission to win the offseason. Hughes knows that the market favors sellers right now, largely because of the weak free-agent market and the rising salary cap. It’s entirely possible that prices drop later in the summer or midway through the season, when teams are out of contention and may opt to move on from certain players.
As much as it might pain some Canadiens fans, Hughes has built up the credibility to be trusted in this situation based on his track record. He has a good record of maximizing returns on veteran players when he has needed to, while also maintaining the team’s organizational prospect depth when adding young NHL talent to the lineup. Some might disagree and point to the Noah Dobson trade as an example of the opposite, but at this time, it’s hard to call a winner in that move.
The bottom line for Montreal is that they don’t need a move; they need the right moves. The kind of moves that will keep this team humming along in contention for the present and future. With all the flexibility and assets at his disposal, Hughes will certainly be content to enter training camp in the fall with the status quo if he can’t find the right additions for his team. Some fans might see that as passive, but letting the market dictate what you should be willing to give up would be more passive, and Hughes doesn’t look like he will do that. That should be music to the ears of Canadiens fans, who should enjoy having a general manager who is proactive rather than reactive.
Teams that win the offseason rarely win in-season. Just ask the Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators, who both won the previous summer only to fall apart during the regular season. The Flames underwent monumental roster changes in the summer of 2022, watching Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau head elsewhere while bringing in Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar. The moves did not go as planned, as Tkachuk took the Panthers to three straight Stanley Cup Finals, while Huberdeau signed arguably the worst contract in the NHL. The same could be said for the Predators, who signed Steven Stamkos, Brady Skjei and Jonathan Marchessault to huge contracts in free agency, only for Nashville to fall apart and miss the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.
The Canadiens don’t have to look far to find promising rebuilds that were derailed by poor roster management beyond the stars. The Toronto Maple Leafs famously had their core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander, but could only get out of the first round twice with the group, while their roster construction left a lot to be desired, especially around the mid-tier contracts on the team. Toronto made a pile of ill-advised forays into free agency that resulted in a lack of cap space, and in some cases, trading away premium assets to make bad contracts go away (Patrick Marleau, for example). Those are the types of mistakes that get made when GMs panic, which is something Hughes hasn’t done, and hopefully, for Canadiens fans, he won’t.
