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Habs can afford to lose Jordan Harris since they’ve a ton of depth on the blue line with younger defencemen and left-handed pictures.
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Generally in life — and in hockey — it’s important to take a threat.
Canadiens GM Kent Hughes took a threat Monday when he acquired Patrik Laine from the Columbus Blue Jackets, nevertheless it wasn’t a giant one.
The Canadiens want to attain extra targets with a view to grow to be a playoff crew and Laine is a former 44-goal scorer with the Winnipeg Jets. Hughes additionally acquired a second-round decide on the 2026 NHL Draft from Columbus, whereas giving up 24-year-old defenceman Jordan Harris.
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The Canadiens can afford to lose Harris since they’ve a ton of depth on the blue line with younger defencemen and left-handed pictures. Harris, who shoots left, was made a wholesome scratch for eight video games final season, together with the season finale when children Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux have been within the lineup.
The danger with Laine is that his 44-goal season was again in 2017-18 and it has been 5 seasons since he final scored 30 targets. Final season, the 26-year-old winger performed solely 18 video games, scoring six targets, earlier than struggling a damaged left clavicle throughout a recreation in mid-December that required surgical procedure. Laine additionally entered the NHL/NHLPA participant help program in January whereas coping with mental-health points.
Hughes famous in a video convention following Monday’s deal that there’s a threat/reward issue with each commerce and that his job could be so much simpler if trades solely had an upside. On this one, there’s loads of doable reward with Laine.
The Canadiens GM is a brilliant man and does his homework. Hughes had been speaking with Columbus GM Don Waddell for a couple of weeks and was given permission by the Blue Jackets to talk with Laine immediately. Hughes believes Laine is now in a very good place mentally and added that the Finn was energized and enthusiastic about enjoying in Montreal.
Street to the Cup
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Hughes additionally spoke with individuals who knew Laine from his 5 years in Winnipeg after the Jets made him the No. 2 total decide on the 2016 NHL Draft and from his 4 seasons in Columbus.
Hughes didn’t wish to get into all the small print about who he spoke with. However Pascal Vincent, who was head coach of the Blue Jackets final season and an assistant coach in Columbus for the earlier two seasons, was employed by the Canadiens final month to teach the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Vincent would know Laine very nicely. Hughes did say that Jeff Gorton, the Canadiens’ government vice-president of hockey operations, and head coach Martin St. Louis additionally spoke with Laine over the weekend.
“We got here away from that dialog very glad,” Hughes stated.
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The very fact Laine solely has two seasons remaining on his contract factored into Hughes’s choice to make the commerce. With an US$8.7 million salary-cap hit, Laine will grow to be the highest-paid participant on the Canadiens, transferring forward of captain Nick Suzuki and his US$7.875 million cap hit.
Laine was in search of a contemporary begin and needed out of Columbus, so the Blue Jackets gave the Canadiens entry to his medical file.
“We additionally spoke to him about Montreal and the stress that comes with this market,” Hughes stated. “He didn’t shrink back from it in any respect. Actually, I feel he’s in search of this kind of a market to come back play in.”
Canadiens gamers will likely be wanting ahead to Laine becoming a member of them as a part of the rebuilding course of after lacking the playoffs for the final three seasons. Hughes stated on the finish of final season that the crew’s younger gamers deserved to be given a lift by way of playoff hopes subsequent season and Laine will assist with that. The GM famous that he labored on boosting the crew’s offence for the long run by choosing forwards Ivan Demidov (fifth total) and Michael Hage (twenty first total) within the first spherical of this 12 months’s NHL Draft and that Laine will help them within the current.
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“To me, this isn’t a transaction that both he scores 40 or 50 or it’s a bust,” Hughes stated about Laine. “Removed from it. My relay to him was: ‘For those who come right here able to contribute to this crew, to do every part in your energy to assist us get to a spot — and if that’s the chance that you simply’re in search of — then say no extra. That’s what I wish to hear from you. Whether or not you rating 20 targets or 40 targets, your success right here isn’t going to be outlined strictly by targets. It’s going to be outlined by your capacity to assist contribute to this crew and assist us.’
“We’re very younger and he could also be younger at 26, however that also makes him an older statesman on the Montreal Canadiens and we’re hoping that as such he’ll do his half to assist and train our younger gamers,” Hughes added. “We talked to him about that, about you look again at your time once you got here to Winnipeg as a younger, 18-year-old hockey participant and you concentrate on the folks and issues that helped you achieve success and the folks or issues that occurred that possibly made it harder to achieve success and carry that ahead to the Montreal Canadiens and assist us and assist these gamers succeed.”
It is a low-risk transfer by Hughes that would have a giant reward.
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