Montreal Canadiens news and notes
- The Canadiens had a full-team dinner on Tuesday night to celebrate Jake Evans’s contract extension, and the jovial mood carried into yesterday’s practice. [La Presse]
- Evans loves the situation he’s in and didn’t want to try to recreate it somewhere else. [Radio-Canada]
- Money isn’t the only thing to the player with a management consulting degree from the Mendoza College of Business. [Montreal Gazette]
- Revisiting Evans’s 2014 NHL Draft class. [La Presse]
- The Winnipeg Jets might be interested in Joel Armia and/or David Savard. [RDS]
- Renaud Lavoie argues that a playoff run is more valuable than a second-round pick Kent Hughes could receive for his rental players. [TVA Sports]
- Behind the scenes with a three-year-old Hudson Matheson at the Habs’ recent skills competition. [Canadiens.com]
Around the league and elsewhere
- Gary Bettman expects some “pain” for the NHL amid the U.S.-Canada trade war. [CBC]
- As the deadline nears, Mikko Rantanen has become the top player to keep an eye on. [TSN]
- While the Canadiens wanted to preserve their team chemistry, Auston Matthews hopes the Toronto Maple Leafs will make a move at the deadline. [Sportsnet]
- The Tampa Bay Lightning traded conditional first-round picks in 2026 and 2027 to the Seattle Kraken to acquire Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand. [NHL.com]
- San Jose traded yet another goalie, dealing Vitek Vanecek to the Florida Panthers. [NHL.com]
- The Pittsburgh Penguins were busy trading on Wednesday, shipping Michael Bunting to Nashville for Luke Schenn and Tommy Novak, and Vincent Desharnais to the San Jose Sharks for a fifth-round pick in 2028. [NHL.com]
- Utah HC was busy signing players on Wednesday, inking new deals with Alex Kerfoot, Ian Cole, and Karel Vejmelka. [NHL.com | TSN]
- The Columbus Blue Jackets extended Mathieu Olivier for six years. [NHL.com]
- Jordan Greenway signed a two-year extension with the Buffalo Sabres. [NHL.com]
- Calgary Flames GM Craig Conroy faces a dilemma ahead of the trade deadline. [Radio-Canada]
- Jack Hughes’s season is over after undergoing shoulder surgery. [NHL.com]
- Sheldon Keefe was fined $25,000 for unprofessional conduct following the play that led to Hughes’s injury. [NHL.com]
- John Gibson left last’s night game versus the Vancouver Canucks with an injury. [TSN]
- Finally seeing some improvement after knee cartilage replacement surgery, Gabriel Landeskog is hoping to return to hockey. [The Athletic]
- Alexander Ovechkin is 10 goals from beating Wayne Gretzky’s record. [NHL.com]
