The NHL trade deadline is upon us, which means that general managers only have until 3 PM EST today to get a deal done.
In recent weeks Habs scouts have been spotted at tons of games, including a recent appearance at the AHL game between the San Diego Gulls and the San Jose Barracuda. What does that mean? Well, not much. Basically it means that the scouts and the management team are doing their job, working on due diligence ahead of today’s deadline.
The Montreal Canadiens currently have $4.9M in accumulated trade deadline cap space, which means Bergevin can get creative and acquire expiring contracts in exchange for picks from teams looking to create some wiggle room in their salary cap situation.
The Habs have three players with no-trade clauses; Alexei Emelin, Andrei Markov, and Tomas Plekanec. There are only two available players that are set to be unrestricted free agents this summer; Ben Scrivens and Victor Bartley.
Here are the draft picks that Habs own going into the deadline.
Even if we’ve seen a fair amount of trade activity in recent days, there are still several of players that are rumoured to betrade bait remaining on the board.
| Player | Position | Team | Cap Hit | End of Year Status | Age | GP | PTS |
| Loui Eriksson | RW | Boston Bruins | $4.25M | UFA | 30 | 60 | 46 |
| Jonathan Drouin | LW | Tampa Bay Lightning | $900k | Signed (1 yr) | 20 | 19 | 8 |
| Nail Yakupov | RW | Edmonton Oilers | $2.5M | Signed (1 yr) | 22 | 41 | 15 |
| Radim Vrbata | RW | Vancouver Canucks | $5M | UFA | 34 | 57 | 24 |
| Mikkel Boedker | LW | Arizona Coyotes | $3.75M | UFA | 26 | 58 | 38 |
| P.A. Parenteau | RW | Toronto Maple Leafs | $1.5M | UFA | 32 | 59 | 32 |
| Brandon Pirri | C | Florida Panthers | $925k | RFA | 24 | 52 | 24 |
| Jamie McGinn | LW | Buffalo Sabres | $2.85M | UFA | 27 | 61 | 27 |
| Lars Eller | LW | Montreal Canadiens | $3.5M | Signed | 26 | 61 | 19 |
| Scott Hartnell | RW | Columbus Blue Jackets | $4.75M | Signed | 33 | 60 | 39 |
| Bryan Bickell | LW | Chicago Blackhawks | $4M | Signed | 29 | 23 | 2 |
| – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Dan Hamhuis | D | Vancouver Canucks | $4.5M | UFA | 33 | 35 | 5 |
| Jonas Brodin | D | Minnesota Wild | $4.20 | Signed | 22 | 50 | 6 |
| Kris Russell | D | Calgary Flames | $2.6M | UFA | 28 | 51 | 15 |
| Patrick Wiercioch | D | Ottawa Senators | $2.0M | RFA | 25 | 50 | 5 |
| Fedor Tyutin | D | Columbus Blue Jackets | $4.5M | Signed | 32 | 50 | 2 |
| Jared Cowen | D | Toronto Maple Leafs | $3.1M | Signed | 25 | 37 | 4 |
| Brendan Smith | D | Detroit Red Wings | $2.75M | Signed | 27 | 53 | 13 |
Here’s a live stream for those who can’t follow on TV.
A lot of people who read this site won’t be able to be around a TV, and for those who won’t be able to watch, we’ve built a twitter list of trade breakers that will update live, right here on EOTP, so you don’t have to go anywhere. There are no rumourists in there, just people who post the actual trades.
