By the trade deadline, many veterans will certainly leave the Canadiens while the Hughes / Gorton duo will reset. This reset will also pay off this summer when a lot of trades could happen at the draft.
From what we understand, everything could continue beyond this date. As Pierre LeBrun pointed out during Thursday night's Insider Trading segment, the Canadians could be very active following the opening of the fee agency.
«Kent Hughes' process is anything but traditional, as the hiring of Martin St-Louis shows. Everything suggests that Hughes will think outside the box again. I have been informed that the Habs will be very aggressive during the off-season to acquire top free agents."
«Montreal is often not the ideal destination for free agents without compensation. On the other hand, teams have informed me that the presence of St-Louis behind the bench could attract many. - Pierre Lebrun
Gorton would like to repeat what he did with the New York Rangers when he signed Artemi Panarin.
According to Capfriendly, many big names will be free this summer, here are a few: Evgeni Malkin, Kristopher Letang, Patrice Bergeron, PK Subban, Claude Giroux, Tomas Hertl, Johnny Gaudreau, Hampus Lindholm, Nazem Kadri...
Do you think the Habs will sign one of these names in order to speed up their rebuild? To be continued this summer...
