The Montreal Canadiens are in 16th and last place in the Eastern Conference of the NHL. At the same time they are only three points behind the Boston Bruins who currently hold the last wild card playoff spot. The New York Islanders and the Ottawa Senators both have better points percentages than the Bruins but have played fewer games. Montreal trails them by two points and one point respectively. In other words, the Eastern Conference playoff race is a tight one.
What does it all mean going forward? At this point, it is hard to say.
If the Canadiens are clearly out of the playoff race by mid to late February, surely some veterans will be moved to make way for incoming prospects and to acquire more assets for the future. That would be the easiest decision that Kent Hughes would have to make. Six players currently with the Canadiens are eligible for UFA status after this season including David Savard, Jake Evans, Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak, Michael Pezzetta and Lucas Condotta.
But what if the Habs are still in the race and the veterans earmarked for potential trades are playing well? That’s when the decisions become more difficult. The long suffering fans deserve a winner and then there’s the issue of potential additional revenue generated from at least two playoff games if the team succeeds in making the cut. Hockey is entertainment but it’s also a business.
If it’s close, does Hughes try to add a player to improve playoff chances or does he go with who has got the team to where it is? The problem with adding to a marginal team is that if it fails to work, the Canadiens will have given up assets and will have multiple free agents on their hands that they could lose with nothing in return.
This seems like the least likely course of action.
One route the Canadiens could follow is where they trade one or two of the veterans who are on expiring contracts and who don’t necessarily fit with the immediate future of the team. Hughes could then choose to keep one or two of the others in the hopes of re-signing them to another contract or accept the fact that he might lose them in free agency.
For example, he could choose to keep David Savard in the hopes of re-signing him. That would set up a battle between Logan Mailloux and Justin Barron for the remaining spot on defence. If Savard did not re-sign, the both Mailloux and Barron would have a good shot at making the team. The other candidate, David Reinbacher is probably destined for Laval as he rehabs from injury and gets further acclimated to the North American game.
The same logic could be applied to the veteran forwards on expiring contracts.
None of the options are particularly clear at this moment and the path that Hughes eventually follows is dependent on how the team plays and how the individual players perform.
