Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Put Gene in the Hall episode, on the Montreal Canadiens and the trade market.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bukauskas: “But you also said during Saturday Headlines on Hockey Night over the weekend Friedge, that Canadiens one of the teams that are looking around the league for some potential help to bolster their lineup, anything to add there?
Friedman: “Well, it had been reported in a couple of places that they are looking for another right shot D. A top-four right D. Like who isn’t? Everybody is looking for a top-four right D. There aren’t enough of those to go around.
But they’re also looking for a forward too, and they’re looking for a forward with some edge.
Eric Engels wrote an interesting column this week just about the Canadians aren’t really hard to play against. And I do think they would like to address that up front with a good forechecker, especially if they can.
The one thing though, that they’ve made pretty clear is they have a plan, especially for their young players. They’ve got a lot of them, and they don’t want to block any of them.
Now, if something fantastic drops on their laps, they won’t be able to say no to it. However, if it’s not something like that, the player they add is going to be compatible with what they’re going to do in the future, and who’s going to get an opportunity in the future.
And so I think that’s something that they’re going to look at, and they might have to subtract a player out to bring a player in. I think that’s the other issue that they’ve got here.
You know, one of the players, actually, I was thinking about defense, a right-hand shot, who I think is a pretty capable NHL or who’s not playing right now, is Matt Benning in San Jose. And I thought he might be good for someone like Utah or someone like Montreal.
But the problem is he’s got one more year. And I think both Utah and the Canadians, they have a preference of somebody who doesn’t have term. And you know, that’s that’s going to be the challenge here. I think a guy like Benning could easily find a home if he doesn’t have that year remaining.
But that’s the kind of thing that Montreal is looking at. They don’t want to impede any of the young players who they’re thinking of adding this year or maybe next year. That’s very important to them.
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