Another major move coming for the Montreal Canadiens?
It's been over two months since we saw the Montreal Canadiens shock the hockey world at the 2022 NHL Entry draft by taking Juraj Slafkovsky first overall instead of Shane Wright, the projected first pick for years.
The Canadiens also made another significant move that night when they traded Alex Romanov to the New York Islanders for their first-round pick and swapped that to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for former 2019 3rd overall pick Kirby Dach.
Montreal had a poor season after making it to the Cup finals in 2021. They finished last place in the league, and it does come as a surprise if you look at the roster. We did see a different team on the ice once Martin St. Louis took over as coach, but it was not enough to get this team out of last place.
The Canadiens decided they wanted to enter a rebuild last season, and to come into this season, we expected to see a lot of pieces moved out for prospects and picks. With the potential superstar Connor Bedard in the 2023 draft, many expected to see the Montreal Canadiens tank this season for that chance at a future franchise player. The problem is, they have too many top 6 players up front.
Whether you like or dislike the Canadiens, you cannot ignore the depth of talent they have up front. While only 2 or 3 of these players are currently top-line calibre, they have almost four lines deep of players who are good enough to be second-line players.
With the additions of Sean Monahan and Evgenii Dadonov this offseason, these are the projected lines at the moment for the Canadiens, according to Dailyfaceoff.com:
Caufield - Suzuki - Hoffman
Drouin - Dvorak - Anderson
Dadonov - Dach - Gallagher
Byron - Evans - Armia
The problem is that these projected lines don't include Monahan or Slafkovsky. Everyone in the current top 9 of the Habs has scored or are capable of scoring 20+ goals. Add Monahan and Slafkovsky to these lines, and you will have two possible 20-goal scorers playing on the 4th line.
If the Montreal Canadiens want a chance at Connor Bedard, they will need to start shipping out these pieces, and according to IB THE GAMBLER, those trades might just be coming soon!
