tomh009

It's Granlund or bust, err, hope that Dach's busted knee is fully recovered!

The one wild card Hughes holds, in addition to the team's (hopefully) rising competitiveness, is Patrik Laine. It could be that Granlund would like to reunite with his linemate from the Finnish national team. and no one else in the NHL would be able to offer him that opportunity. 😊 So, that could help tilt the field a bit in the Habs' favour--or mitigate some other factor that would be against us. (I do think that being from northern Finland and having played for years in Minnesota, he can probably deal with the Montreal winters.)

Armia or Dvorak for $2M or so would be perfect, if either one of them were keen enough to stay in Montreal to do that. Able to fill in competently if someone is injured, kill penalties or even (in a pinch) contribute on PP2. I think that's unlikely, though.

I suspect that the bidding war will be limited to the teams that Granlund wants to play for. He's made $50M in his career already and, like Tavares, can afford to take a discount to play for the team of his choice. What we don't know is which team(s) he prefers, or how much of a discount he'd be willing to take. But ultimately it's his choice, where does he want to live, who does he want to play with, and how much money does he want to make.

I seriously doubt that Hughes would have the luxury of choosing from two alternatives. We might be able to get Granlund at an acceptable price (assuming Dallas can't find the money to extend him, and that he's happy to play in Montreal), or we might be able to trade for RHN (assuming Edmonton wants to do the trade, and RHN is willing to waive his NMC). But I doubt both of those options will come to be.

Are you suggesting that they should not pick any francophone players?

Maybe if you go back far enough in history. Definitely not a grandson (or great-grandson), though. On the other hand ... he's heading to Cornell for NCAA hockey in a few months--just 59 years after Dryden did the same. I think that's enough of a legendary connection, even if he's not not related to Yvan.

Manifest destiny:

Right. Ideally a vet at close to $1M that can be buried in Laval if necessary. Better than platooning Beck and Kapanen and having them sit out half the games.

I would guess one veteran forward signing, whether it’s the mythical 2C, Dvorak, Armia or something else. And one rookie spot in addition to Demidov.

Ahem, Heineman is packing up his apartment at the moment, and heading out to Long Island. And I think we'll see Hutson spending at least some time on RD, rather than Guhle.

Finally you got your LHD! 😊

Maybe they figure that it's OK because it'll be much easier to trade for an LHD.

Some OHL-level comments from the local newspaper: "Not sure if I’ve pointed this out before or not, but I really like Andrew MacNiel’s game. Simple, tough, makes good choices and looks like a regular, even though he’s often been one of the many healthy scratches this season. Some good poise too when he skated away from Windsor’s AJ Spellacy, who was trying to bait him into a penalty in the third period. He’ll play a bigger role next season with Jakub Chromiak and Matthew Andonovski likely moving on." I didn't think he'd be drafted this year at least. The Habs scouts must be seeing something more than I am.

That's three RHD picked in this draft!

Norway House Cree Nation.

Pronman wasn’t keen on Hutson, either. 😂

Similar size to Schmidt?

I'm amazed no one else was willing to take a chance on him.

Profile looks OK for 4C should he not reach the 3C level. Two more years in the WHL and then AHL, so maybe competing for a roster spot in 2028 or 2029?

He is a skinny guy! 😂

I think the Flyers were the lightest team in the league this year.

Big signing bonuses to (try to) take advantage of reduced taxes, à la Tavares.

So, I’ve read some of the NYI fans’ comments about Dobson: much the same as the complaints about Matheson!

Yes, they could have. And maybe one of them could have turned into an impact player. Bit, most likely, they would have been mired in the middle of the lineup. Which is not like Dobson.