Montreal Canadiens Looking For a Top Four Defenseman

As NHLRumors.com has documented, the Montreal Canadiens are exploring the trade market. However, like most teams, they are not able to find suitable trade partners this early into the season.

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Expectations were higher for Montreal this season, and internally, they wanted to play meaningful hockey later in the season. But injuries are haunting this club again, and it might be too early to panic even though GM Kent Hughes is on the phone trying to upgrade and improve his club.

Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli joined Andi Petrillo on Amazon’s Coast to Coast on Thursdays to discuss the latest rumor mill and was asked if the Montreal Canadiens are looking to upgrade their defense corps because of the recent injuries.

NHLRumors.com Transcriptions

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Andi Petrillo: “When it comes to the Montreal Canadiens, as we know, Guhle is dealing with an injury. Mike Matheson was injured a little bit, and that means we’ve seen that young rookie Lane Hutson as entertaining as he is put in a lot of minutes early on in his career here. So maybe that’s making Montreal feel a little bit uncomfortable. So what can you tell us about their search, perhaps, for a blue liner.”

Frank Seravalli: “Yeah, Andi, the Montreal Canadiens are checking prices around the league for a defenseman, preferably a right shooting top four defenseman that they could add to their lineup. But they’re finding out that prices are not only pretty high but also that teams aren’t really interested in making moves at this time of the year.

So nothing imminent, and it’s also a bit of a crossroads for the Canadiens. You mentioned the Guhle injury and Matheson being banged up, but they don’t really want to overtax David Savard. And Lane Hutson certainly not an ideal situation to your point, playing almost 24 minutes a night just about 10 games into his NHL career.

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So the Canadiens are going to keep an eye on it. They feel like they have the future of their blue line ready to go with Hutson and Logan Mailloux and David Reinbacher when he’s healthy. So the question is, do you go out and spend assets in the short term to try and bring in a stopgap to alleviate some of those concerns?

They haven’t quite arrived at that just yet in terms of making that decision, but certainly something that they’re going to continue to monitor as they look at the market.”