The Montreal Canadiens could trade Jake Evans, but he won’t net the return two of their defensemen would
The Fourth Period: David Pagnotta and Dennis Bernstein on the Montreal Canadiens and how teams will be interested forward Jake Evans, and defenseman David Savard and Mike Matheson.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Kate Pettersen: “Well, the last few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about Montreal having some attractive players that, that could be up for grabs, David Savard, Christian Dvorak, Joel Armia, just to name a few. But what about Jake Evans? He’s, he’s a center. He’s got a $1.7 million cap hit. Could be an attractive fit for someone looking to upgrade the bottom six.”
Pagnotta: “He definitely would be Kate. I think that that, excuse me, Jake Evans is going to be a player that a lot of different teams look at. That teams that are looking to shore up their bottom six, specifically on the fourth line. And remember, this is a player that played that performed well for the Canadians in a fourth-line role when they went on during to face Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup final a few years ago.
He’s got playoff experience at a young age. He’s got that great cap hit, as you mentioned, so there wouldn’t even need to be necessarily retention from Montreal’s perspective. He’s going to be on the radars, as we talked about with the Islanders with they’re offensive guys, for teams looking to stabilize their bottom six, Evans is going to be a prime target for a lot of cup contenders.
Not sure if they’ve had any discussions at this point on, on an extension, but teams like Toronto, teams like Los Angeles, other clubs that want to bolster their bottom six. Evans is going to be right there, and we’ll see how the Canadians maneuver that because they know how valuable of a piece he can be. And that cap hit alone is attractive.”
Bernstein: “Yeah, right. I think you look at the defense here, right? So of course, you’re going to have a rumor about David Savard going to the Edmonton Oilers, alright, so let’s, let’s put that out there.
But I think that, and what’s Jake Evans going to get you? Like, a mid-round pick, conditional pick, right? So, but Savard, back in the day, they got a first-round pick for him when he went to Tampa Bay. So that’s going to be a different situation.
And Mike Matheson, who is not great defensively, but can certainly be an impact player on the blue line. So I think look at those two players, as well as some guys that you mentioned, Armia and Evans up front.
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But I think the big moves they can make that can really help this team right now in the moment, would be trading one of those two defensemen.”