Eric Engels of Sportsnet: Injuries to some players led to a quiet trade deadline for Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes.
Forward Jonathan Drouin has missed 23 games his season and he missed 10 of those from mid-January to mid-February. The Canadiens would have retained 50 percent of his salary but there were the concerns.
With the amount of man games lost this season and last, the Canadiens are going to have to do a thorough review on the situation.
Defenseman Joel Edmundson had just returned from his back injury and they wouldn’t have gotten much for him. He’s got a year left at $3.5 million. Hughes doesn’t blame teams for not wanting to give up full value as he’d be thinking the same in their position.
Forward Sean Monahan remains injured and they don’t know if he’ll be able to return this year. Hughes was non-committal if they could make him a contract extension offer.
Arpon Basu of the Athletic: The Montreal Canadiens having a quiet trade deadline wasn’t a surprise to GM Kent Hughes.
“Quiet, relatively quiet for obvious reasons, which we expected,” Hughes said when asked to describe the activity around the Canadiens on Friday. “So it wasn’t anything of a surprise for us. The other thing we discussed is the trade deadline’s the trade deadline, it’s not like a moratorium thereafter for the rest of time until this time next year to make trades.
“Last year we traded for (Mike) Matheson, (Kirby) Dach and (Sean) Monahan post trade deadline. So when you go into this process, and we’re trying to be efficient in what we do, you have to evaluate what’s the best time to make moves, and that’s also counterbalanced by what the opportunities are.”
The return for anyone would have been low if they wanted to move anyone. If Joel Edmundson can play out the year and be healthy, maybe he’s moved in the offseason or they wait until the trade deadline next year.
The Canadiens have two salary retentions and could have done another at the deadline but wanted to keep a slot open just in case.
“Then if there’s that situation that presents itself at the draft, we couldn’t do it,” Hughes said. “So we opted, based on what the returns were, that it was worthy to preserve one (retention slot).”
Josh Anderson could become a trade candidate this offseason or at the deadline with the salary cap getting a little higher in 2024-25.