Kent Hughes Sends Bold Message to Brad Treliving in Trade Offer for Top Maple Leafs Target
With the trade deadline a week away, Montreal GM Kent Hughes sent a message to prospective trade partners that whichever player they want isn't going to come cheap.
Although the Montreal Canadiens are going to miss the playoffs again this season, they are certainly going to be a big part of helping other teams by trading a few of their assets at the deadline, as the team looks forward to next season and beyond.
But GM Kent Hughes isn't dumb, and he knows that he holds a lot of very important pieces on his roster.
So with a week from the deadline, he has a simple message for potential trade partners: You better come with your best offers.
With names like Jake Evans and Joel Armia being throws around, Montreal would love to get some pieces back for them although they aren't in a position where they are handcuffed to a trade.
So if Toronto wanted to get a player from Montreal, what would be a good offer for Hughes?
Toronto Should Trade Multiple Picks And Mid-Tier Prospect For Offensive Help
A good offer for Hughes would be Fraser Minten or Easton Cowan ideally, but there's no way Brad Treliving is parting with them for anything less than a top-tier 2C or defenseman.
So instead, Toronto should look to package their 2nd and 3rd round picks along with a prospect like William Villeneuve to see if Hughes would budge.
The team is in win-now mode and picks are valuable more as trade assets now than picking for the future. The team can worry about that in a couple of years once the window has closed a bit more, but for now they need to win.
With the two picks originally belonging to Florida and Edmonton, it's presumed both of those picks will be much later in their respective rounds, and those are never a guarantee anyways; if Armia can come in and help then pay that price.
Armia, 31, would give Toronto both an offensively capable third line winger, but also give them the size they always love having (Armia is 6'3, 216 pounds) and he plays solid defense.
This season, Armia has 10 goals and 14 assists in 59 games for the Canadiens; for his career he has 102 goals and 100 assists in 564 games since being drafted 16th overall by Buffalo in 2011.
Armia is currently making $3.4M and will be an unrestricted free agent at season's end.
It doesn't solve the problem of needing a 3C, however perhaps Toronto could add a lot more pieces and ask for Evans as well.
But that's going to raise the price dramatically, and if the Maple Leafs are looking to splash their cash on a different center, they may eschew Evans for a player like Brayden Schenn or Brock Nelson.
Either way you slice it, it's going to cost Toronto a lot to do business at the deadline. If he wants to make a deal with Kent Hughes, he has to know that his team's most historic rival is going to take nothing less than full value.
Who can blame him though?
| POLL | ||
FEVRIER 28 | 667 ANSWERS Kent Hughes Sends Bold Message to Brad Treliving in Trade Offer for Top Maple Leafs Target Should Toronto still make a trade with Montreal even if they are going to play hardball at the deadline? | ||
| Yes absolutely! | 241 | 36.1 % |
| No way! | 426 | 63.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
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