Top Canadiens Trade Chips Heading Into 2026-27

It’s hard to see Montreal Canadiens goalie Sam Montembeault as a trade “chip.” He may very well be traded in the weeks ahead, but that would probably be more to accommodate him (not that an official request has been reported) and enable him to play more, when, were he to stay, he might realistically end up third on the depth chart below Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler.

More to the point, after Montembeault went 10-8-4 with a 3.43 goals-against average and .872 save percentage last season, his trade value isn’t exactly high. You shouldn’t be anticipating a high return if he’s going the other way, similar to with Brendan Gallagher, who obviously got traded to the Vancouver Canucks earlier this offseason for future considerations, with the Canadiens even having to go so far as to retain half his salary.

Further taking into account how the Canadiens should have designs on not just making the 2027 Stanley Cup Playoffs but contending for the Cup, your usual suspects, i.e., pending unrestricted free agents like Josh Anderson and Phillip Danault, probably don’t qualify on this list of the team’s top projected trade chips heading into the season. This isn’t a list of players on the block or those who aren’t long for this organization in general, but pieces the Habs should consider moving to get them closer to the ultimate goal.

Here are the top three:

3) Kaiden Guhle

In terms of roster players, someone like Oliver Kapanen up front is probably the most expendable from a long-term perspective. However, even with a top prospect like Michael Hage poised to potentially replace him as the team’s second-line centre at the end of next season upon signing his entry-level contract, Kapanen remains the logical choice to play the position for the time being. Unless it’s a second-line centre coming back the other way in any trade, Kapanen is probably staying put, at least for the time being.

In contrast, the Canadiens have a few too many bodies on defense, especially on the left side. While Arber Xhekaj remains unsigned as a restricted free agent and Jayden Struble is probably destined for little more than seventh-defenseman duty, Kaiden Guhle would most definitely get more on the open market… should the Canadiens decide to trade him.

It’s obviously far from certain that they do, because Guhle remains a fairly reliable all-around defenseman when healthy, and he showed signs of breaking out to a further extent these past playoffs when he scored eight assists through 19 games. At just 24 years of age and a former first-round pick, his ceiling remains high, but he’s also played just 208 games out of a possible 328 in the regular season since he joined the Canadiens for the 2022-23 season.

If the Canadiens are serious about having a spot open for prospect David Reinbacher to earn in training camp, albeit on the right side, that leaves one less spot for Guhle, with Lane Hutson, Noah Dobson and Mike Matheson effectively making up the top three. Obviously Guhle is more valuable than Alexandre Carrier, who will be a pending unrestricted free agent, and, ideally the Habs would keep him in the fold as a result. However, if they see him as significantly more valuable than Carrier, other teams probably do too.

Food for thought.

2) Alexander Zharovsky

If reports suggesting the Canadiens almost traded for Toronto Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies last deadline are accurate, then the Habs also came close to trading Alexander Zharovsky. That means the 19-year-old Russian is relatively fair game, despite having just won the Kontinental Hockey League Alexei Cherepanov Award for best rookie, to follow in the footsteps of current-Hab Ivan Demidov who won it the previous year.