It’ll be hard to expect too much out of the Canadiens today, many minor trade pieces being taken off the market, with injuries to Tom Gilbert and Brian Flynn, bottom-of-the-roster types like Torrey Mitchell and Paul Byron freshly signed to new deals, and Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann already dealt.
Ideally, I’d like a shakeup of the ‘core’, with Tomas Plekanec traded for a significant young forward, a name we’ve been batting around for a while like Kerby Rychel or Nail Yakupov, but that’s pie-in-the-sky stuff. Tomas just extended for two more years, has an active No Trade Clause, so I don’t expect anything like that today; at best it might happen in June at the draft. But if some trade could be concocted including Tomas to fetch a Top 6 winger, I’d be very happy. And it’s not that I dislike him and want him gone, I just think a change in the mix is overdue.
Another dark horse to be moved might be Andrei Markov, and I’d hate to see him go, but teams like the Capitals and Stars seem like they’d benefit greatly by adding his skills to their group as they make a run. Andrei has always stated that he wants to remain in Montréal, and acted as if he did, except for the troubling swoon he underwent in December and January, when he was making horrible giveaways and acting churlish and disinterested.
If he does indeed clash with the coach and other players on the team, maybe he’d lift his No Trade Clause, be ready to face the adventure, and continue his career somewhere else, and make a run for a Stanley Cup. I imagine a young defenceman would have to be the return in his case, maybe a player to complement P.K. on the top pairing like Marc Méthot to Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson.
Most likely though, we’re kind of done for this trading period, and my dreams of boatloads of draft picks for this June and beyond will go unfulfilled. We’ll just have to get lucky when we spin the Wheel.
No comments:
Post a Comment