The Tomas Plekanec trade continues to pay off for the Montreal Canadiens today

But did you know that another trade, made by a former Habs general manager, is still paying off?

Indeed, in February 2018, Marc Bergevin traded veteran Tomas Plekanec and a certain Kyle Baun to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return for forward Kerby Rychel, a 2018 second-round pick, as well as forward Rinat Valiev.

Well, so far, nothing to write home about, but where it gets interesting is that Valiev was involved a few months later in another deal, the one that brought defenseman Brett Kulak to the Habs.

On October 1, 2018, Kulak was acquired from the Calgary Flames in return for Valiev and someone named Matt Taormina. As we know, this initially innocuous exchange, became one of the very good personnel moves on the part of Bergevin as Kulak became a regular on defense with the Habs afterwards.

After four seasons with the team, he was sent to Edmonton at the trade deadline in exchange for defenseman William Lagesson, a conditional second-round pick in the upcoming draft and a seventh-round pick in 2024.

To sum it all up, it's as if Tomas Plekanec was traded for Brett Kulak in a sense. Even though the Czech forward had made a brief return with the Habs in the fall of 2018, it was a payoff trade for Marc Bergevin because when he traded Plekanec, it was a matter of not losing him for nothing as a free agent and he managed over time, to receive a reliable defenseman in Kulak.

Now that he has left for the Edmonton Oilers, we'll have to wait and see if Lagesson and the two picks he got will be able to continue this chain that started with the Tomas Plekanec trade with the Leafs.

A big thanks to Cimon Asselin, of the Habsolumentfan site, for the info.