Canadiens acquire two AHL project defencemen, Brett Kulak and Gustav Olofsson.

So the Canadiens made two minor but significant roster moves.  First, they traded away Rinat Valiev and Matt Taormina for Brett Kulak.

This Brett Kulak trade is good job by Marc Bergevin and the Canadiens staff.  I have to believe that the Flames' blueline is more crowded, that their #7, #8 and #9 d-men are a better quality than ours, with Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Noah Hanifan and Travis Hamonic on the Top 4.  Yet they squeaked Brett Kulak through waivers, and thus he became valuable to other teams, they could trade for him and park him in their AHL roster, for a reserve to use later in the season when injuries strike, kids get sent down, etc.

The thing is, he's a big leftie puckmover, something we need, and we give up an AHL stud in Tormina who we can spare, what with the logjam of defenders in Laval, and Valiev, who I think we can say has topped out, and may not be a fit in our roster and system.  I don't know what the Flames get out of it, maybe they needed bodies on the farm, but we get a callup-able d-man who still has room to develop, that we don't have to carry on our NHL roster.  Good trade.

The same can be said of the Olofsson trade, he fills the same organizational need Brett Kulak does, but some Twitter anger artists don't understand why the Canadiens didn't just pluck him off waivers a couple days ago.  The thing is, if we had claimed him, now we'd be the ones struggling to keep him on the 23-player roster, with our injured players still to come off IR and having to find them room.  We got a player with a Get Out of Jail Free card, another strapping youngster with upside we can park in Laval to finish simmering, who we can call up when needed.

The Canadiens give up William Bitten in the deal.  He was a player I wasn't worried about, was eager to see him develop in Laval, was willing to be patient with, but honestly didn't have much hope for him as a pro.  He simply didn't pop, he was a good pick as a 17-year-old, with the extenuating circumstances in Flint, but in his two post-draft seasons he didn't produce enough points.  For a high third-rounder, he should have been scoring 30-40 goals and 100 points or nearly so.  Instead, he plateaued, remained a feisty instigator with lots of speed and work ethic but no offence.  I figure that's an acceptable loss.  Sorry to lose the francophone boy, but guys like Hillis and Fonstad are similar players with more upside, a better chance to make the Show.

So, so far so good with the Canadiens' roster churn this training camp/season.  We managed to hold on to all our pieces, with the Nikita Scherbak decision still pending, with no player lost to waivers.  Simon Després may yet be added to the roster in Laval, although the two young vets about to come aboard maybe squeeze him out even further.  And those two young vets materially solidify our blue-line, giving us more options than a Brett Lernout if we suffer injuries.