The amateur draft window has been when the management duo of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton like to do business. They started at their first draft with the trade for Kirby Dach, and have followed it up with the additions of Alex Newhook and Noah Dobson in subsequent years.
It’s not surprising that fans and pundits would expect a big move from HuGo this past week. But with the draft in the history books, the only thing the Montreal Canadiens did was draft.
There are holes to fill.
While there are differences of opinion about targets, the holes in the Habs roster are known. They need a second line upgrade who can play with Ivan Demidov. The Canadiens would also like to bring some balance to their defense group by adding a right-shot defender, preferably one who can play top four. Size and physicality are also on the wish list.
While the holes are known, finding the perfect pieces to fill those holes is a bigger challenge.
The goal is a complete machine, not just a bunch of parts.
When Marc Bergevin was the general manager I had a little joke. Bergevin walks into a car parts store, approaches the counter and says he’s building a car. The service guy admires the task and asks Bergevin what he can get him. Bergevin responds, “Six mufflers.”
The criticism of Bergevin’s tenure was never his ability to acquire parts. He made good trades on a fairly consistent basis. The issue was that you could never see the vision of what he was building. Berge was guilty of acquiring too much of the same thing, and assembling a bunch of parts that didn’t fit so well.
HuGo wants more than one good run on the backs of two or three star players. They have said consistently, from the time of their arrival, that they wanted to build a team that could compete for a long time.
You don’t achieve that by assembling random parts.
The final parts will be rare finds.
Trades were made this past week… lots of them. How many of those players were perfect to complete the Habs? The alleged monster offer for Kirill Marchenko, a player who was not even on the market, provides a sense of how precise the Canadiens want to be in the final stages of the build. It also serves notice that HuGo is prepared to pay big for their preferred target.
Finding rare gems requires patience. They could have matched or beaten some of the returns in those big trades. But HuGo is focused elsewhere, and it’s a long summer. HuGo is trying to stay patient until some dominoes fall.
Some other parts might need to be addressed first.
Today the Habs traded Brendan Gallagher, freeing up both a roster spot and $3.25 million. That allows the Habs some breathing room to add a better fit for their bottom six, or to bring in an entry level contract from Laval so the cap space can be used elsewhere.
They also issued a qualifying offer to Kirby Dach, a player that almost certainly would be a valuable piece of a package to acquire a piece from their wish list. Is he more valuable under contract?
Kaiden Guhle is a luxury the Habs cannot afford to have on their bottom pair while there are holes to be filled. He would have value to a trade partner.
Perhaps HuGo would prefer to have Demidov under contract before adding another big contract, and perhaps that wait will be enough time for Don Waddell to adjust to his new reality, or for other GMs to adjust their plans.
Perhaps there are way more irons in the fire than most of us have any clue about, and we’ll just have to be patient.
Hab At Her 