Montreal Canadiens
Canadiens In Good Position With Hot NHL Trade Market
The NHL Trade market is out of sorts at the moment with the biggest fish already off the board and prices soaring, leaving the Montreal Canadiens in a good position.
With the likes of Timo Meier, Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko already off the board, and Patrick Kane seemingly laser-focused on the New York Rangers, the market for forwards is now wide open.
The Canadiens already jumped on the trade market by flipping veteran forward Evgenii Dadonov to the Dallas Stars for speedster Denis Gurianov, but they could still make a few moves before Friday, especially with the way things are going.
The likelihood of Jonathan Drouin finding himself on another team in a similar deal to that of Dadonov increases as he continues to line up solid performances of late, especially while playing at centre.
There is also the slight chance that Sean Monahan could still be moved for a draft pick filled with conditions tied to his ability to play games for his acquiring club down the line.
However, one thing that has sparked attention for the Canadiens since the trades of Timo Meier and Tanner Jeannot is the potential boost in value for Josh Anderson.
Anderson Premium
Anderson fits that similar mould of power-forward, goal-scoring style that is so rare to come by in the NHL, and there are a lot of buyers that were looking at Meier that walked away empty-handed.
Teams like the Calgary Flames and Vegas Golden Knights, are looking for goal-scoring power forwards with size and still have a plethora of trade assets left to make moves, but have a dwindling pool of available candidates before the NHL Trade Deadline.
Jeannot returned Cal Foote, a 2025 1st-round pick, a 2024 2nd-round pick, and a trio of mid-round picks in 2023 to the Nashville Predators from the Tampa Bay Lightning. That’s the equivalent of two 1st-round picks, a 2nd and more; quite the haul for a role player with some upside and a cost-controlled contract.
Meier, the main piece in the trade between the San Jose Sharks and the New Jersey Devils, returned prospect Shakir Mukhamadulin, a 2023 1st-round pick, a conditional 2nd-round pick in 2024, a 2024 7th-round pick, Fabian Zetterlund, Andreas Johnsson and Nikita Okhotiuk.
Another trade that revolves around the equivalency of at least two 1st-round picks, with the possibility of a third 1st-rounder should certain conditions be met.
Thus, it wouldn’t be outlandish to think that the Canadiens, who aren’t openly shopping Anderson, just like the Predators weren’t openly shopping Jeannot, could extract an interesting return in this current market.
Anderson has already potted 17 goals on the season in 57 games so far, with six goals in his last 14 games since being placed on the top line with Nick Suzuki.
There are four days left to the NHL Trade Deadline, and Anderson’s play has done nothing but improve. The Canadiens shouldn’t openly shop him, but, if the market continues to soar the way it has over the last week, the Montreal Canadiens shouldn’t hesitate to strike if an offer presents itself.
It may very well be the height of Anderson’s value and it could bring back some pretty interesting assets from the right buyer.
https://montreal.nationalhockeynow.com/2023/02/26/montreal-canadiens-grading-nhl-trade-deadline-proposals-josh-anderson-joel-edmundson/
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The only way I’d want to part with Anderson is if we get quality vs quantity. Sure, San Jose got a long list of stuff, but they didn’t get any of New Jersey’s top prospects. San Jose just traded away their best player for a whole lot of lottery tickets. If we trade Anderson we need to be adding an elite piece in the return, not a whole lot of good pieces. The pipeline is already bursting with a whole lotta good pieces. All of that will develop into a good team, but good doesn’t cut it in the Atlantic division. We need to be elite.
So maybe we trade some good talent along with him to get that young elite talent if they are in win now mode.
I think Anderson on his own should bring us back an elite talent without having to add anything to the deal.
not sure if it suits your ask, but I’d probably do Wolf or Pelletier with a 1st rounder for Josh, but since we’d likely also need to eat an expiring contract like Lucic, I might also want a sweetener 😉
IF it’s my choice between the 2, I actually want Wolf over Pelletier but that could backfire and I’d certainly “settle” for Pelletier if need be…. I like want Monty has done this year and I hope Dobes is our future, but I don’t trust our goaltending yet and would love to add Dustin Wolf… Pelletier is another skilled but undersized forward, but he’s got a good 2 way game to go with his offensive talent – I don’t care that he’s French, but some will see it as an added bonus…
It’s also possible we could target Wolf & Pelletier without the 1st (I wouldn’t even require a sweetener for taking back an expiring contract if we landed both 😀 ), I just don’t see it happening on either side… Hughes seems to want a third 1st and I can’t see the Flames give us both those kids…
My ask already looks steep to me, so how serious is Calgary?
As for Vegas, I’m not a big fan of any of their prospects so I honestly can’t find a good deal… at least not with Josh… they can have Drouin or Hoffman for a draft pick though…
Hi John. Thanks for the respectful response. I’m not big on Wolf myself. He’s only 6’0” tall and I’m a fan of huge goalies. Other than Saros in Nashville, there aren’t any successful goalies that short anymore. I wouldn’t want to take the risk that Wolf will buck the trend. I have liked Pelletier in the past, and wanted him as a part of the Toffoli trade. But since the last draft, we’ve added a lot of smallish players, so I’d prefer to get a bigger player back. Don’t forget, by trading Anderson, we’ll already be getting smaller, so it would be nice if we could replace him with a big guy too. I think as soon as we trade Anderson we’ll now be looking endlessly for a player just like him. He raises his game in the playoffs too, and that’s exactly the type of player we need moving forward. However, if we are made an offer we just can’t refuse, then we’ll have to strike while the iron is hot. I just think what that constitutes amongst fans will be highly variable.
Such BS with the “short goalie” narrative. Goalies that are 6’1″ and under, have to play twice as good as goalies 6’2″+. The tall goalies get all the spots and starts on teams just because they are tall and “we’ll teach them to be good”. If minor league teams only give opportunities to tall goalies, guess why 6’0″ goalies aren’t achieving success these days? It’s not rocket surgery. Also, you conveniently leave out the fact that WAY more tall goalies fizzle out before the NHL. What about them? Have you lost confidence in them? A good goalie is a good goalie, plain and simple.
I take it you are under 6’1” then? I’m playing the numbers here. There are 64 NHL goalies plus a few third stringers on teams. How many are under 6’1”? Predicting goalie prospects is hard enough already. Any edge we can get in percentages, I’ll take. And right now, the taller goalies give better odds. Not my rules, just the stats of today.