The Montreal Canadiens to be active in or around the draft and free agency
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal and was asked if the Montreal Canadiens could have done more at the deadline or if they were setting up things for a busy off-season.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
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Host: “And finally, before we let you go any idea if the Montreal Canadiens were close on anything else or if any maybe groundwork was laid for a potential deal in the summer? Like, what was happening behind the scenes besides the Jake Allen move?
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, I mean, obviously there were discussions revolving around, you know, David Savard, and, again, the Canadiens had I mentioned this last week, they had their price they didn’t want to waiver off it. Kent Hughes did subtly suggest, maybe quite fully, that draft time is kind of the other trade deadline.
And as we’ve seen the last two drafts, they’ve made some moves that brought in Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook, and I suspect they will be active again this summer, at or around the draft. I think they did. Like a lot of teams, Ottawa was very aggressive, and they actually admitted that publicly to that. Them even Buffalo, a lot of teams were doing a lot of due diligence with respect to what future moves could be made. And I think St. Louis to a certain extent as well.
NHL Rumors: Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Montreal Canadiens
I expect all of those teams, including the Montreal Canadiens, to be active again this summer. And I think it by the sounds of things. Yeah, there were some discussions than one because, obviously, you want to comb things out, but I think the Habs will be active this summer and piggyback off of these discussions they’ve had the last few weeks going into the summer.
I think their goal certainly is to add another forward, and I think they’re going to be a little bit more aggressive in terms of adding a top-six scorer.”
