Why Kent Hughes Is The Best Habs GM Since Serge Savard

To start, with his background as a player agent, Hughes is a master when it comes to negotiating contracts. Very rarely have we seen Hughes give in to a player’s contract demands since taking the helm as General Manager. The only contract we could say he gave in a bit more than the others was for defenseman Noah Dobson’s contract this summer. However, even with that contract, he was able to negotiate Dobson down a bit. Trading for right-handed star defensemen like Dobson doesn’t come around every day, and with the cap going up, paying Dobson $9.5 million a year for 8 seasons will only get better as the cap rises. Originally, Dobson was reportedly asking $11 million from the New York Islanders, but he did mention that he would be willing to take $10 million from the Canadiens if he were traded there. Although, $500,000 isn’t a lot of cap saved, it still shows that Hughes will always find a way to negotiate a player down, even if that player’s demands seem not to budge. 

It will be interesting to see how he handles the new contract of his star defenseman, Lane Hutson, within the next year. It wouldn’t be surprising if it somehow comes in cheaper than Dobson’s for two reasons. The first one is that Hughes is a great negotiator and will always find a way to make a player drop their contract demands. The second reason is that, unlike Dobson, Hutson will have another 5 years of restricted free agent years, giving the Habs a little extra leverage in signing his new deal. Therefore, knowing Hughes, he could easily sign the reigning Calder Trophy winner to a 7-8 year deal (depending on if it’s signed before the next off-season) at around $9 million a year, which could be the exact contract that PK Subban signed over 10 years ago when the salary cap was much lower. Not to mention, Hutson is already a better offensive defenseman than Subban was.

Another reason that Hughes is a better GM than anyone over the last 30 years is that he knows how to treat his players with proper respect, unlike we had seen in previous regimes, such as when Pierre Gauthier sent a bill to Mike Camalleri for his jersey when he kept it after being traded mid-game. The overall vibes around the team are better than they have ever been over the last 25+ years since Hughes has been in charge. Part of the respect is having a head coach who can put himself into the shoes of the players and know how to motivate his players, rather than just yell. For the first time in a long time, Hughes chose his own guy when he became GM, rather than recycle old French Canadian coaches who just yell all the time like Michel Therrien did.

We could include Hughes’ early drafting record, but the reality is that’s more of a factor of the development and scouting staff he and Jeff Gorton have brought in since 2022, such as Nick Bobrov, Adam Nicholas and Chris Boucher. Nonetheless, surrounding himself with the right modern hockey people does make him a better GM than we’ve seen in a long time. Therefore, that can be another reason he is the best GM since Serge Savard.

Hughes has gotten the best out of most of his trades; however, due to injuries, the Kirby Dach deal hasn’t worked out well so far. Aside from that, there is the Alex Newhook trade, where he likely paid too much, but it remains to be seen if the 31st and 37th picks in 2023 end up panning out. During his first Trade Deadline as GM, he traded forward Artturi Lehkonen for a young defenseman in Justin Barron, which didn’t work out well. However, he turned Barron into defenseman Alexandre Carrier last December, who turned into a great acquisition that helped the Habs make the playoffs. Therefore, the Lehkonen deal gets canceled. We’ve rarely seen a GM fix one of their mistakes so flawlessly, but Hughes did it.

Given all those reasons above, I can’t see why someone could doubt Hughes as the GM who helps the Canadiens build their way back up to a contender.

Do you think that Kent Hughes is the best Canadiens GM over the last 30 years?