Will There Be a Trade That Comes Out of Left Field?
Dave Pagnotta of The Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal and asked whether there could be a trade that comes out of nowhere, and nobody is tracking right now.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Host: “All right, so it’s interesting. You bring this up (teams get creative and add elsewhere) because I was kind of gonna circle around to the Canadiens, because a year ago, at this time, the Canadiens did exactly what you’re proposing the Oilers should do is pick up a $3 million defenseman, and they picked up Alex Carrier. Though Carrier is struggling a little bit now, and I’m not saying he’s a guy that can move, but the Canadiens are dealing with some defensive issues.
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Montreal might want to go and acquire a defenseman like this, and the Oilers might want to acquire a defenseman like this because of cap restraints. Who are the defensemen out there that you could shore up like because Alex Carrier was a subtle positive move for the Canadiens last year. Who’s out there that move is available to?”
Dave Pagnotta: “You have to and this is where, like, there’s no readily available guy that fits that particular description. What Kent Hughes did was poke and prod and try to see, ‘hey, what would it take to get this guy?’ Like, those are the type of left field moves that you don’t see coming, you don’t expect, but pay dividends, which is what happened in this particular case.
You look at the teams that are selling and what’s out there. They don’t have those pieces that are, that are making that type of money. Like Justin Faulk is available in, in St Louis, but he’s got a bigger cap hit. That’s not going to apply. Maybe Derek Forbort in Vancouver, but he’s injured, and we don’t know the extent of that particular injury. He may be out for an extended period of time. He’s already been out longer than they anticipated.
And then you look at what Nashville has. They don’t have that piece. They just signed (Nick) Perbix. Now they brought in Nic Hague, and he’s five and a half signing him. You don’t have that piece. Nick Blankenburg, maybe at 775, but he doesn’t fit that same role, I guess, as a guy like Carrier. So the options in that respect, from readily available, are limited.
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You have to go out there, and you have to be aggressive in trying to fill a need. You have to convince a team to move a particular player, you know, Ramus Andersson is available in Calgary. You’re gonna have to pay a premium to get him, and he’s $4.55 million.
So if you’re looking at someone in that $2-$3 million range who is effective, like Carrier, those are pretty effective pieces for their teams already. So you’ve got to be able to convince a club to pull that trigger.”
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