The Montreal Canadiens did not make a single trade surrounding the NHL Trade Deadline as it passed on Friday afternoon, and for once it isn’t met with cries of a missed opportunity. It’s because the Canadiens players and their general manager are in a cycle of challenging each other.
General Manager Kent Hughes challenged his team before the season started, not only trading for Patrik Laine, but saying that he expects the team to play meaningful games in March and April. They are already halfway there.
Nick Suzuki has said on multiple occasions that he is tired of losing teammates at the deadline. At the 4 Nations Face-Off break, the Canadiens looked destined to be sellers. They limped into the break and were falling out of the playoff race. The six games that followed the break changed things. They won five straight, and took the Edmonton Oilers to overtime in the sixth. Jake Evans, the pending unrestricted free agent with the most value, made the decision to stay and signed a four-year contract extension. This time, the players challenged their GM to stay the course.
The Canadiens are firmly in the mix, and while teams around them have tried to improve, Montreal hasn’t done much. Joel Armia, David Savard, and Christian Dvorak will stay. There will be no replacement for Kirby Dach to reinforce the team’s second line. It was one last challenge from their GM: Let’s see what you’ve got.
There are no expectations on the team to make the playoffs this season, and, quite frankly there is no jeopardy there. They are, for all intents and purposes, playing with house money. An unexpected playoff place shows this team what they are capable of. A close miss shows them what they need to take the next step. At this point in the rebuild and the season, there is no bad result.
Having said that, this team controls their fate. Captain Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Evans were in their first NHL seasons when they had a taste of playoff hockey. Evans was 23 in the 2020 Bubble playoffs, Suzuki was 20. Caufield was 20 in the 2021 run that ended in the Stanley Cup Final. They now represent the future and current core of the leadership group. Joel Armia, Josh Anderson, and Brendan Gallagher – the only other players still on the roster from those years – are now on the other side of 30.
Between the two groups, there is a knowledge of what it means to play playoff hockey for Montreal, and an urgency to get back there. Anderson, especially, is pushing himself through injury in a way that someone who watched Paul Byron, Shea Weber, and Carey Price in 2021 could.
Whether this season ends after Game 82 or continues beyond, the Canadiens stood pat at the deadline because they didn’t need to make a move. They are exactly where they should be. The players wanted to stay together—now it’s time to see what they can do.
