Kent Hughes has once again pulled off a surprise trade this past Tuesday that no one saw coming. He traded, as promised, goaltender Casey DeSmith to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Tanner Pearson and a 3rd round pick in 2025.
Indeed, players like Kirby Dach, Tanner Pearson, Alex Newhook, Mike Matheson, Justin Barron, Sean Monahan, Lias Andersson, Nicolas Beaudin, and Filip Mesar (his pick was acquired in the Toffoli trade) were all selected in the first round. We must also not forget Denis Gurianov, the Islanders' pick (acquired in the Alex Romanov trade), and the Panthers' pick (acquired in the Ben Chiarot trade) who are no longer with the organization.
Add to this Juraj Slafkovsky and David Reinbacher, both drafted by Hughes, and Cole Caufield, Kaiden Guhle, and Logan Mailloux, all signed by the new Canadiens' GM. From the Bergevin era, if we exclude Carey Price, only Nick Suzuki and Joel Armia were drafted in the 1st round and are still with the team.
There's certainly a desire to have and rejuvenate young and older talents who were initially promising. The Hughes/Gorton duo is undoubtedly focusing on talent, beyond attitude (see Bergevin era). Now, it remains to be seen whether the development of the younger players combined with the experience of the older ones will yield a different result this time.
