dlbalr

I've had a few variations of this idea in my mind over the last week and I'm not sure if this is the winner yet but here goes: To Montreal: F Ryan Johansen ($4M through 2024-25) COL 2026 fourth-round pick To Colorado: F Adam Henrique (75% retained, 50% from ANA, 25% from MTL, $1.456M through 2023-24) G Jake Allen (50% retained from ANA, $1.925M through 2024-25) Rights to F Ty Smilanic To Anaheim: COL 2026 second-round pick COL 2025 third-round pick F Oscar Olausson ($863K through 2025-26) To do this, four separate trades have to be made: 1) Smilanic to COL for Johansen, COL 2026 2nd, COL 2025 3rd 2) Allen, COL 2026 2nd, and COL 2025 3rd to ANA for Henrique (50% retained) 3) Allen (50% retained) to COL for Olausson 4) Henrique (50% retained on remainder) to COL for COL 2026 4th Montreal gets some value for Allen in Johansen, someone who I think can be flipped next season as a rental and pick up a future pick for the second element of retention. Smilanic is this year's Arvid Henrikson, their least valuable asset, just since something had to go to Colorado in the first part of the trade. Colorado gets their backup goalie on a value contract for this year and next and gets a short-term C upgrade while even freeing up a bit of cap space. They probably can't move Johansen for Allen without getting a centre somewhere else. Anaheim is believed to be seeking a second and a third for Henrique plus another third for retention on Henrique. They do a bit better with this as Olausson (a former first-round pick whose value has dipped a bit) has a bit more value than another third-round pick in exchange for eating half on Allen. I waffled on adding another small element for them but the Avs only have so many trade chips here.

Points, no, but he was tied for the lead in PPGs with Gionta (10) in his lone full season with the Habs.

Did anyone catch what happened to Struble? They mentioned he was being helped down the tunnel on the broadcast but there was never a replay. He didn't play the final half of the third pretty much.

Tough 21-second sequence there with the two goals allowed. O'Connor's shot was nice but that looked like Primeau wasn't quite in the right spot positionally.

I will give him credit, he has cut those down this season which has been nice to see.

A few years ago, that was the case but there's a reason he had to settle for a two-way deal and cleared waivers earlier in the year. He wasn't even doing much in the minors this season let alone being a legitimate NHL player. He's this year's Chris Tierney, a warm body.

Interesting first period, lots of shots for either side. Primeau looked a bit rusty but after sitting for a week and a half, that's to be expected.

I think he'd be playing at the level of 0% in the playoffs as I'm skeptical he'd crack the regular lineup of most playoff-bound teams. Maybe when there's an injury or for a one-game thing where they want to up the physicality but not as an every-game player. Teams like Vancouver need grit, sure. But I think they should be aiming a bit higher on the talent side of things.

Not sure White is really a stabilizer. Honestly, I'm not sure he's a better player than Gignac. That was largely speculative with Hughes being his old agent. Glen Metropolit - claimed from Philly Feb. 27/09, played against Philly for Montreal that same night. How I remembered the player is beyond me (I had to look up the date just to be sure).

Original 6 market, different country, and a bit of a unique culture relative to most other hockey markets. Any of those would appeal to a team doing a trip like that.

To piggyback on this, I suspect Holtz is in New Jersey's offer for Markstrom or another impact player. Not sure Montreal has the best fit.

If faced with waiving Allen or carrying three goalies to start next season, I think they'll believe that three goalies is the lesser evil. If the intention is to give him away, there's a way to do it without waivers, it's the trade for future considerations approach. That would reflect better on the organization who could then say they sent him to place of his choosing rather than running the risk of one of the teams on his no-trade list putting in a claim. If they waived him and a NTC team claimed him, that wouldn't be pretty; the Habs would be accused of bypassing his trade protection which wouldn't sit well with players and agents.

I'd be shocked if that happens. Hughes has gone out of his way to be respectful to veterans so I don't see him embarrassing Allen like that. That's one of those things where the reputational hit to the organization would make that a risky proposition.

The other thing of some note in there is that they're no longer looking for goalies which takes one of the more viable speculative landing spots for Allen off the table.

They did draft two Russians in last year's draft class so I'm not sure about the anti-Russian part. They really seemed to like Reinbacher based on the offers they reportedly declined and based on the video they released, also seemed to be a bit risk-averse when it came to Michkov.

Mysak was also injured in this one as Laval's depth gets thinned out even further.

Pretty entertaining finish. And I liked the shoot-first mentality that we haven't seen a ton of from him.

I think that's what they're heading for. I could see a time when the top-used defender is around 22 minutes a night. Some nights it's Guhle and Reinbacher as a shutdown pairing, others it might be the offensive guys with the team trailing and needing to come back. But gone would be the days of someone like Matheson playing 26 minutes and the #6 guy playing half of that; there would be a lot more balance in the distribution of minutes. Not a lot of teams try that but I can certainly see the upside of it.

He's done for the rest of the regular season and most of the playoffs at least.

I think the wow element is that this might wind up being a mild concussion. When he was skating off the ice following the hit, he didn't look like a player who was dealing with a mild concussion but rather a longer-term one. I certainly didn't expect to hear that he was at that point of the recovery already.

Yeah, the timing is the important part. Allen's value might be at its best near the draft if a team doesn't want to commit a multi-year deal to a backup goalie in free agency. Johansen's probably isn't at its best until the next trade deadline so value is certainly relative to the calendar.

Small difference in faceoff success. Malhotra was elite at nearly 60%. Evans' career success rate is 51%, slightly better than a coin flip. Granted, the Habs aren't great on the draw now with Monahan traded and Dvorak done for the year but 51% isn't a faceoff specialist like a Malhotra was. Don't get me wrong, he's serviceable as a 4C, but that's about all he is.

Not sure I'd agree with that. To me, the marketability of a higher-priced backup is probably lower than a higher-priced 3C, all else being equal (and their contracts are close enough to be equal). I think Johansen at 50% next year brings back more than Allen at 50% next year. Johansen would give Montreal some more flexibility with some of their other expiring C's that year (Dvorak and Evans) which could help on the trade front. I'd do that straight up if the opportunity presented itself but Colorado obviously would need to solve their C situation first or build it into the trade as a 3-way deal with Montreal using their last retention slot on someone like Henrique and then flip him as part of the swap too.

But what if Columbus offers up the President spot (with Davidson going to an advisory role)? Then it's an upgrade (in title, at least) which might force Montreal's hand to say yes to an interview as generally, teams don't block people from getting promotions. (Of course, the easy way around this is Molson gives up the President title but that'll never happen.)

He's 27 and aside from 2021-22, hasn't been able to score much at all. I don't think the Habs consider him a core piece of their future plans. The 4C spot is one they'd probably like to get cheaper at.