Montreal Canadiens’ Josh Anderson In High Demand Across The NHL

The Montreal Canadiens will be receiving lots of calls this summer, and one player that teams keep calling on is Josh Anderson.

There has been a lot of talk as to whether or not the Montreal Canadiens would consider moving their power-forward, given that his value is likely at its highest. The 28-year-old winger has five years left at $5.5M on his contract and could be an excellent trading chip should general manager Kent Hughes decide he wants to capitalize on Anderson’s strong reputation across the league. Hughes had received many calls on Anderson leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline, but it seems that his high price for Anderson’s services caused a few teams to turn away.

On a most recent segment of Oilers Now, NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman joined host Bob Stauffer to talk about the possibility of the Oilers acquiring a power-forward like Anderson to replace Evander Kane. When asked whether the Canadiens would be open to trading a player like Anderson and if other teams had shown interest in the recent past, Friedman confirmed that Anderson was quite the hot commodity.

“Yes, I do absolutely think teams were sniffing around there, but I think the problem was the Canadiens were asking a lot,” said Friedman while on the Oilers Now show. “He’s a good player, he’s signed for a while and they’re not just going to give him away.”

Friedman was however not the only one to point out the league-wide interest regarding Anderson, as a high-ranking NHL executive has confirmed to Montreal Hockey Now that Anderson is of interest for quite a few teams in the NHL. The source also confirmed that the Montreal Canadiens haven’t floated Anderson’s in trade talks, but are listening in case a team is willing to pay the high price they’ve set for their bruising winger.

Similar to the Arturri Lehkonen and Brett Kulak trades at NHL Trade Deadline, it would take a “knock your socks off” offer to get the Montreal Canadiens to consider moving Anderson. It will be interesting to see if a rival general manager decides to bite the bullet and pay the price Montreal has set on Anderson, as that would likely be a hefty return that could net the Canadiens interesting assets in the form of top prospects and high-end draft picks.