Canadiens’ Laine Represents a Low-Risk Trade Deadline Addition

If Montreal Canadiens forward Patrik Laine had been healthy a few days ago, the Winnipeg Jets would have been the perfect team for him to face in his hypothetical first game back from injury. After all, they did draft him once upon a time. And, following an impressive 3-0-1 stretch heading into the Olympics on the part of the Habs, the Jets, who are now 22-26-8 and well out of playoff contention, represented a weak opponent in a (relatively) pressure-free game. Case in point, head coach Martin St. Louis made the generally unpopular decision to go back to goalie Sam Montembeault, who rewarded the team with arguably his best game of the season. Why can’t Laine do the same under similar circumstances?

Playing Montembeault Works Out for Canadiens

While you are always looking for the two points, especially in a tight Atlantic Division, St. Louis went with the goalie who has struggled significantly. It wasn’t as much of a risk as it may appear at face value, seeing as Jakub Dobes hadn’t been as impressive in his last game out in net as he had in the three previous games (three wins in a row), and it’s been proven that his save percentage drops dramatically when he’s played too often. What makes the decision to go with Montembeault especially noteworthy is there was one game to go before the Olympic break. Surely Dobes could have eked out another win?

And, surely, if you were going against the grain to play Montembeault, you could have found room to play Laine, who led the Canadiens with 15 power-play goals last season despite missing 30 games due to injury? Ultimately though, Laine hasn’t been cleared yet since requiring core-muscle surgery following a second consecutive early-season injury. So, it’s in one way a moot point, but there have been suggestions in the media that, even if Laine were healthy, the Habs would prefer to sit him.

Taking it one step further, Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reported the Canadiens are prepared to retain salary to move him. However, keep in mind, Kypreos also opined the Habs might be willing to add in an asset to facilitate a trade, while Eric Engels, who specifically covers the team for Sportsnet, reported in one of the pieces linked to above that his sources say an extra asset isn’t on the table.

So, take it all with a grain of salt. However, it’s easy to understand why the Canadiens would want to trade Laine based on his forward-group-leading $8.7 million cap hit, how he played down the lineup primarily with Jake Evans and Josh Anderson the few games he had been healthy and how the Habs have the third-most-prolific offense in the NHL (3.46 goals per game) without him, for all intents and purposes.

The overriding argument is in effect the Canadiens don’t need Laine and they’d prefer to have cap space back, conceivably to fill other holes in the lineup ahead of the March 6 trade deadline. The ironic part is the biggest hole the Canadiens have is in Montembeault’s net… and, his win over the Jets notwithstanding, until they are confident that need has been addressed, it’s an arguable fool’s errand to add other pieces in a bid to win it all this year of all years.

Where Laine Fits in Canadiens’ Lineup

In an ideal world, Laine would represent a scoring threat at the bottom of the lineup when healthy, especially seeing as there isn’t room for him at the top. There had been a preseason experiment placing him opposite rookie Demidov on a line centred by Kirby Dach, but saddling the former with two reclamation projects looked like a disaster in the making. After the Canadiens sustained multiple injuries at the start of the season (including to Laine), Demidov formed a relatively strong line with Juraj Slafkovsky and fellow-rookie Oliver Kapanen. Meanwhile, since returning from his own injury, Dach has gotten reps on the top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield with encouraging results reminiscent of how the three gelled in Dach’s first season as a Hab in 2022-23.