Laine Placed On Defense At Habs Practice + Trade Rumours

Given that there are four lines of forwards + one extra guy on offence as well as 7 defencemen at practice, the staff needed to have one forward flip over to defence for the drills to even themselves out to two different 5-on-5 pairings. The fact that Laine was that guy says all we need to know about where the coaching staff sees the Finnish sniper among their lineup going forward. Therefore, don’t be surprised to see him either traded or treated as an extra the rest of the season if the Canadiens can’t get a deal done before the trade deadline on Friday, March 6th at 3:00 pm ET.

Since he hasn’t played since the 5th game of the season on October 16th against the Nashville Predators, after going down with his sports hernia injury, it may be hard to get any return for Laine. This is why there is still the possibility that the Canadiens won’t even be able to trade him at all.

However, according to reports by RG Media’s Marco D’Amico, one team that seems to have some interest in acquiring Laine is the Los Angeles Kings. This makes a lot of sense as they recently lost Kevin Fiala for the rest of the season after he broke his leg during a game for Switzerland against Canada at the Olympics. There is a serious need for a power play specialist with the Kings, as they currently are ranked as the league’s 29th best power play with just a 16% success rate on the season. Laine could be the perfect fit as someone who can help the Kings’ power play start to produce.

Even at that, D’Amico and Dennis Bernstein also admitted that Laine is not one of their first choices as a replacement for Fiala in the top 6. With that being said, the Kings are seemingly looking as if they are the most likely to take on Laine the rest of the season, if anyone, but it sounds like they have other names in mind that they would like to explore first. Not to mention, the Kings also acquired Artemi Panarin right before the Olympic Roster Freeze, who could also be an answer to their power play issues. If things start out well with him and his new team, the Kings may not even look at another right-handed top 6 winger, which is what could stop the deal from happening.

The reality is that the Canadiens may need to retain salary on Laine and add a pick to load off the Finnish forward’s contract. While many may say that the Canadiens don’t need to pay to trade Laine for nothing unless they are clearing money for a bigger deal, TVA Sports’ Nicolas Cloutier wrote an article detailing why it is essential to get a good part of his contract off the books before the end of the season.

Cloutier explains that the Canadiens currently have just $326,000 left in cap space, which is the 2nd lowest in the league of the teams that are below the cap, which means that at this point in the season, the highest salary they can add in a trade without trading out salary is a player making $1.18 million a season, with 1/3 of the season to go. Therefore, Laine’s contract limits the Habs from getting any realistic reinforcements at the deadline.

However, the biggest thing is that the Habs are looking like they will have to pay a good chunk of bonuses to their players on entry-level contracts. This includes 3 players in Ivan Demidov, Oliver Kapanen, and Lane Hutson that are up for bonuses. How bonuses work is that the total amount gets added to the team’s yearly cap hit at season’s end.  If a team goes over the salary cap, they will be penalized the amount that they go over by the following season.  Per what is shown on Puckpedia for each player’s standards to reach their certain bonus amounts, the Canadiens are expected to need to pay out $1.65 million in additional salary at the end of the season. This means that if there is no movement at all at the deadline, the Habs will likely lose $1.325 million in salary heading into the upcoming season.

It would be one thing if Laine had a role on the team, but he doesn’t right now.  Therefore, by leaving his full contract on the books, the Canadiens would be throwing away $1.325 million for nothing. While retaining 50% of his contract by the Trade Deadline would free up $951,563 in cap space and reduce the penalty to a much more manageable $422,432. This is why, as Cloutier says, the Habs need to find a way to get rid of Laine’s contract at all costs.