A surprising new player placed on the trade market by Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens?

For the past few weeks, many experts have agreed that Kent Hughes should be active again this year in the transaction market.

The Habs still have a surplus of forwards, but the recent injuries to Jonathan Drouin and Mike Hoffman have given Martin St-Louis some breathing room. Indeed, the latter had to juggle with his lineup and he even had to send, on a few occasions, a veteran to the press box.

But now, plans may have changed. As reported by Marco Normandin of Habsolumentfan.com, a defenseman could be on the trade market well before the March 3 trade deadline.

According to reporters Marc-Antoine Godin and Arpon Basu of The Athletic, Michael Matheson's return to action means the Habs now have eight regular defensemen available, and one of them could well be sacrificed by Kent Hughes.



As was the case with the forwards at the beginning of the season, the same problem could resurface, because in last Saturday's game against the Flyers, it was Jordan Harris who was penalized, he who is certainly not the worst defenseman in Montreal right now.

Still according to Basu and Godin, the Habs are looking for prospects and/or draft picks.

But if we believe that a defenseman would be available for a possible transaction, let's go by elimination.

We can immediately cross Kaiden Guhle and David Savard off the list, as this is the most reliable pairing so far this season.

Despite the fact that he was left out of the last game, Jordan Harris is also one of the untouchables, and the same goes for Arber Xhekaj.

That leaves veterans Joel Edmundson, Michael Matheson and Chris Wideman, as well as the very surprising Johnathan Kovacevic.

It's easy to argue that Edmundson will be a free agent at the end of next season, but he's a leader on this young defensive brigade and in Matheson's case, he's only just returned to the game.

In the case of Kovacevic, despite his unexpected performance by management, I don't think he has a huge market value.

Which brings us to Chris Wideman, a decent defenseman, but not having a great season so far. However, he could very well be of interest to a team looking for depth on the blue line and he has been passed over a few times already this season.

What do you think? The second option could still be Edmundson, much like Ben Chiarot was sacrificed last season.

In any case, it's interesting to learn that in addition to the usual names (Hoffman, Dadonov, Drouin), a new and more surprising name could be placed on the trade market by Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens.