The Montreal Canadiens have traded defenseman and assistant captain Hal Gill to the Nashville Predators, with a conditional 5th round pick (2013) for a 2nd round pick (2012), and forwards Blake Geoffrion and Robert Slaney.

Slaney is an ECHL left winger and is likely just depth for Hamilton. The meat of the deal is Gill and a conditional 5th for a 2nd and Geoffrion.

Going into the deadline I figured Gill's worth, based on historical returns for a player like him, was approximately a 2nd rounder plus an asset. This deal is approximately that. 2nd rounder from Nashville figures to be 50th-55th come draft day. A place with about a 30% chance for a decent NHL player (probably better if your head scout is Trevor Timmins).

Geoffrion is a scion of a noble Habs family, the great-grandson of Howie Morenz and grandson of "Boom Boom" Geoffrion. His father Daniel, played 30 games for the Canadiens in the 1979-80 season.

He was a star NCAA LW but at 23 years old has yet to really break out as a professional; his best performance being his 37 points in 45 games as 22 year old in the AHL last year. He's played as a depth guy in Nashville and a good AHL forward in Milwaukee this season. As a prospect you could say he is somewhat below but not that far from the level that Aaron Palushaj is at. He does help shore up LW prospect depth, which is a bit of a weak area in Montreal's system.

The condition of the 5th round pick is whether Geoffrion plays 40 games in the NHL next season. If he does he's probably worth a 5th rounder (which isn't worth much).

The Hamilton Bulldogs have confirmed that Geoffrion will report to the team on Saturday.

Reaction from Geoffrion

More analysis from the EOTP team to follow.

With Mike Blunden on IR, for the next four to six weeks, and Yannick Weber now out with a lower body injury, the Montreal Canadiens have again recalled Aaron Palushaj from the Hamilton Bulldogs.

The 22-year old forward just registered his first NHL point, an assist Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets, before being sent back to the Bulldogs. Palushaj has played 17 games for the Canadiens this season, on an on-call basis, and leads the Bulldogs on scoring with 28 points (13 goals) in 30 games.

More after the jump

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While Carey Price and Raphael Diaz were at the NHL All-Star Game festivities over the weekend, the rest of the Montreal Canadiens took a few days off. There were a few exceptions, and forward Ryan White was one of them.

"It's good to be back," White said Monday. "I was here for a few days by myself. I had a good break here, but it's good to see the guys back"

The 23-year-old spent the weekend getting into game shape, after recovering from sports hernia surgery and spent Monday's practice centering the team's fourth line.

But don't expect to see him in the lineup Tuesday night against the Buffalo Sabres, as there's a bit more work to be done.

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The Montreal Canadiens were down 2-0, after two periods against the Boston Bruins.

I noted during the second period that Pierre Gauthier was spotted leaving the press box. Seemed of interest, given the comments made by Mike Cammalleri yesterday afternoon. But after Cammalleri had a team meeting and clarified his statments to the media, it was basically water under the bridge. Gauthier thought otherwise.

As the third period progressed, it was noted that Cammalleri was absent from the Canadiens bench, after playing 9:02 through 40 minutes. Slowly word trickled in that this was a team decision, over an injury.

Turns out, the Habs forward was told to take a cab back to the team hotel, and it is now confirmed that he was dealt to the Calgary Flames.

Rene Bourque , a known problem child in Calgary and under contract until 2015 at $3.3 million per year, is headed back the other way, along with prospect Patrick Holland and a 2nd round pick in 2013.

The Flames also get the rights to goaltender Karri Ramo, currently in the KHL and a 5th round pick in 2012.

According to Gauthier, and Flames GM Jay Feaster, the deal had been in the works for over a month. OK.

Cammalleri does not have a no-trade clause in his contract, but does have a block on seven NHL teams.

This is Cammalleri's second trip to Calgary. He scored a career-high 39 goals in his single season with the Flames (2008-09), before signing as an unrestricted free agent with the Canadiens the following summer.

In 170 regular season games with Montreal, he recorded 54 goals and 65 assists. During the 2009 playoffs, he scored 19 goals in 19 games.

Bourque is currently serving a five-game suspension, for a hit to the head on Washington Capitals defenseman Niklas Backstrom, and can return to action on January 17.

More to come, as flashbacks to 1995 have begun.

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Mike Cammalleri has quickly become the latest scapegoat for the Montreal Canadiens. He knows about it, and heard it last night, so you know he's not happy.

The Habs winger showed his frustration after practice today. A report from Francois Gagnon showed a much deeper side when Cammalleri spoke to the French media. "We play like losers," he said, "So it's no wonder why we lose."

Seems peculiar that he did

Cammalleri post game video from Hockey InsideOut

Gagnon's piece.

TSN report (video), with a follow up from Gagnon

Spin by the French media, or a sign that Cammalleri wants out of Dodge?

For the record, this is Arpon Basu's report on Cammalleri. Basu also oversees the French side of NHL.com. This is his report en francais It appears Cammalleri is only making comparisons.

In a surprising move, Jacques Martin was fired this morning by Montreal Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier. While there has been a consistent call for his termination from fans almost since the day he was hired, the Canadiens seemed to be happy with what Martin brought to the table until now.

The team was clearly under-performing lately, however a large portion of blame for that could easily be put on a multitude of injuries. The Habs have been the most injured team in the NHL this season in both man-games lost and CHIP, which calculates how much salary is on the shelf each game.

In many ways this looks like a panic move by the organization after the Canadiens have failed to make a significant push since winning 4 straight games in October.

There were hints that this might happen however. Early in the season Martin had been benching Gauthier's two prize signings in Alexei Emelin and Erik Cole. While that has changed recently, there was a bit of a feeling of differing philosophy between coach and GM.

Regardless of the reasoning, the Canadiens have decided to hand the reins to Randy Cunnyworth on an interim basis. This may be surprising to many as Cunnyworth does not speak French. This decision may be a precursor to the Canadiens moving away from the self-restraint of hiring bilingual coaches, or it could be a stop-gap measure which gives them until the summer to find a suitable candidate.

Canadiens official press release:

MONTREAL – The Canadiens have announced that Jacques Martin has been relieved of this duties.

Randy Cunneyworth is named interim head coach of the Montreal Canadiens until the end of the season.
Larry Carrière becomes assistant coach.

Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier will meet the media after the team morning skate today.

We've been hearing for 3 seasons now that Spacek is an untradeable player due to his contract, but now he's been dealt for another player that legions of fans call untradeable as the Montreal Canadiens exchange Spacek for Tomas Kaberle in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes.

In the wake of the trade Frederic St. Denis has been sent back to Hamilton, which will surely help the Bulldogs' decimated defense corps.

Over the last several years and over their careers Tomas Kaberle has been vastly superior to Jaroslav Spacek, so what's the catch? Well Spacek is a UFA after this season, and although Kaberle only earns 417K more this season, he has 3 remaining years on his contract including this one.

Cue the impotent internet rage.

You would think that after the James Wisniewski trade, signing Erik Cole, finally luring over Alexei Emelin and making the right move with Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak (signing Price to a steal of a deal), that Pierre Gauthier would get some benefit of the doubt from Habs fans about his level of intelligence, but no. Instead everyone is assuming that this will cause us to lose Josh Gorges or Andrei Kostitsyn. Because we all know how great the majority of Habs fans are at predicting the moves the organization makes, right?

So everybody calm down. Stop worrying about what ifs and let's look at what is. Cap space can be created in the offseason and as Elliott Friedman has noted, Kaberle is very tradeable during the offseason. So does Kaberle improve the Canadiens right now?

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Well the NHL's Board of Governor's appears to have done it again.

How hard is it for 30 boneheads to take out a map of North America, mark the 30 NHL markets and figure out what logically works best?

Apparently they couldn't do it. That said the NHL will realign into four conferences for the 2012-13 season, that is provided a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is reached, or the current one is extended.

According to the first report from NHL.com, the new alignment is, "in favor of a configuration that features four conferences based primarily on geography."

Based on geography you say?

Well here is how the new, yet to be named conference that features your Montreal Canadiens will look.

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Toronto Maple Leafs

and, get out your maps kids...

The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

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