Habs' Hughes making calls amid rough start, no trade imminent
Published
With the Montreal Canadiens stumbling out of the block this season with a 2-4-1 record, general manager Kent Hughes has begun to scour the trade market for possible solutions.
TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun reports that Hughes has been active in making calls to other general managers, although no trade appears imminent.
"[Hughes] is at least getting a sense of what's out there because I think the Canadiens would be open to making a move here that would help sort of shake up the make up and help this team win some games," LeBrun said on Early Trading. "The reality though is there is almost no trades at this time of year - we know that in a cap system.
"I don't think there's anything imminent for Montreal, but I think it's noteworthy that the Habs aren't just sitting there and saying 'Oh well, we're off to a slow start, that's life.' No, it has fueled Kent Hughes to maybe make more calls than he might have this early in the season. We'll see where it leads.
"A couple things that I'd have to point out. One is that the Habs aren't going to mortgage the future in any kind of deal - the long term still trumps all. The other thing is that they're right at the cap, so it's got to be apple to apple, in terms of a salary coming in, a salary going out, which also adds to the difficulty of making that kind of trade this early in the year."
The Canadiens are winless in their past four games, earning just one point over that stretch. They had a pair of tough losses on home ice last week against Pittsburgh (6-3) and Los Angeles (4-1) before things got ugly on Tuesday night in a 7-2 loss to the Rangers. The Canadiens allowed four goals in the opening period, chasing Samuel Montembeault from the net.
The team is off before back-to-back games this weekend against the St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers, with head coach Martin St. Louis stating after Tuesday's loss he wanted to use the break to regroup.
“I’m very disappointed with the result,” said St. Louis. “I’m probably going to go home, watch the game, and have a plan tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do tonight about tonight. That game is over.
“Now it’s what’s next that’s important to me. It’s the repair. How are we going to repair some of these things, [like] falling asleep on an icing? I’m sure it’ll get addressed. But there are other parts of the game that we have to be better [at]. Some of it is collectively but some of it is individually.”
Defence has been an issue for the Canadiens, allowing 20 goals against in their past four games as they’ve iced a very young defensive corps with Mike Matheson (30) and David Savard (34) the only defencemen on the roster older than 23.
The rookie defence pairing of Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux struggled mightily against the more experienced Rangers, as they finished the game at minus-4 and minus-3 respectively. They have a combined 12 NHL games between them.
“It’s hard to win when you give up a field goal before the first TV timeout,” St. Louis added of Tuesday's defensive woes.
The team has also been without the services of defenceman Kaiden Guhle the past two games due to an upper-body injury. Prior to the injury, Guhle was averaging 21:45 of ice time.