Montreal Canadiens Trade Rumors - Beer League Heroes

Will the Oilers be Forced to Lose the Puljujarvi Trade?

Jonathan Willis has a post up at The Athletic regarding Edmonton’s disgruntled Finnish winger Jesse Puljujarvi where he outlines why there’s only one team in the NHL that will be able to take advantage of a Puljujarvi trade, that being the team that acquires him. He’s of the opinion that the Karpat winger is worth as little as a 2nd rounder or “a little more” and the team acquiring Puljujarvi will be getting a player who should be ready for NHL deployment in one season, not three or four like a player drafted this summer would generally be. (source)

BLH’s Thoughts: If you don’t know, I’m a huge fan of Puljujarvi and it’s my hope that he sees the light and returns to Edmonton someday, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. My feeling is that he won’t be traded until the draft unless somebody ponies up big to trade for him in the next week. The Oilers have a plethora of contracts coming off of the books and could use that as leverage to trade Puljujarvi for an established winger whose contract might be causing issues for his current team. Maybe that’s a team like Arizona who will be gummed up going into 2020/21. Maybe they could use Puljujarvi and trade for Marian Hossa’s contract in addition to a massive sweetener like a first-round pick or a young player like Christian Dvorak.

Here’s a discount code for a subscription to The Athletic should you be without. If you sign up through that link you’ll get 40% off and I’ll get a tidy little coupon for Amazon.

Sens Blueline Could Use Addition

Bruce Garrioch is reporting that injuries are taking a toll on the Ottawa Senators defense and they are in the market to add a dman. They’ve called up Max Lajoie and Christian Jaros to cover for Christian Wolanin (shoulder), Andreas Englund (lower-body), Erik Brannstrom (hand), and Cody Goloubef (undisclosed).

BLH’s Thoughts: The Buffalo Sabres are looking to move a defender. Maybe there’s a fit there? Elliotte Friedman has said that Marco Scandella’s name is being bandied about.

What is Nashville Doing with Kyle Turris?

Preds center Kyle Turris has been a regular attendant to Nashville’s press box lately and there’s a trade coming shortly. There doesn’t seem to be a fit for the former Ottawa Senator with the Predators. (source)

BLH’s Thoughts: I’ve heard through a source that Turris isn’t the easiest guy to be teammates with. Take that for what it’s worth but if it’s true, that could be a factor in why he’s not playing and why the Predators are trying their damnedest to get him out of Nashville. I wonder if Calgary would try to work out a deal with him?

Quick Hits

The Habs are hoarding their cap space and the speculation is that they are indeed going to swing for the fences this season. (source)
Sounds like Tyson Barrie was that close to asking for a trade out of Toronto, but things have calmed down since the firing of Mike Babcock. The word going around now is that they’re going to try and address their issues in net by targeting Tristan Jarry of the Pittsburgh Penguins. (source)
Elliotte Friedman said on Oilers Now last Friday that the Canucks have been looking to move on of their “forwards” for a year now, but the offers haven’t been satisfactory. (source)
The Capitals are going to have to make a decision on some players as those that are on the IR or suspension will be back sooner than later. Richard Panik is a candidate to be moved as is Nick Jensen. (source)

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According to a source employed close to Montreal, the Habs are targeting Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl.

Ummm. Sure.

Now it’s no mystery what position the Montreal Canadiens are going to try and beef up this summer. Bob Stauffer on yesterday’s Oilers Now thought that they would be going after Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny and I think that would be a much better plan of attack than to try and pry Leon Draisaitl out of Edmonton.

For argument’s sake, what would it take for you to trade Draisaitl to Montreal? For me, I can tell you it’d have to include a package that included 4 of the following,

2018 1st rounder
2019 1st rounder
Brendan Gallagher
Victor Mete
Noah Juulsen

That’s just me mind you. I won’t trade Leon Draisaitl for Erik Karlsson. So that should be enough to tell you how highly I value the big German.

A DIFFERENT OILERS/HABS PROPOSAL

On Lowetide’s show yesterday morning Pierre LeBrun said that the Habs were looking for a top-4 left-handed defenseman.

Oscar Klefbom, come on down!

Would you be willing to move Oscar Klefbom to the Habs for Victor Mete and Nikita Scherbak? Thus saving some space on the cap whilst adding young talent on D and on the wing creating a bit more depth.

Would you prefer to move Klefbom for Brendan Gallager straight across?

I’m sure some smartass out there is going to say neither and that’s fine. I’m just trying to create some banter.

COMPARING DRAFT RANKINGS

In the last seven days, I’ve managed to purchase the draft guides from The Hockey News, ISS (International Scouting Services), and HockeyProspects.com (The Black Book) and I can tell you that I like each and every one but for different reasons.

The Hockey News ($6.99) – I like it because it’s visually pleasing. It offers a lot of articles and the scouting reports aren’t too long. Also covers a few prospects from the next two drafts briefly. I’m a big fan of comparables and each player up to a certain number is given one be it an NHL player comp or a positional/depth comp. Only 100 profiles though…

ISS ($10) – This is my first year purchasing the ISS draft guide and what I noticed off the bat was it was quite easy to read. Meaning the words weren’t too small that I had to get up close to read them whereas The Hockey News’ guide, the words were a tad tiny to try and fit all the reports in. This guide included a 1st round mock draft, risers/sleepers, and a top-5 best/worst of different attributes like “stay-at-home dmen”, “puck protection”, “underrated/overrated”. I also liked how they graded different skills on every player. Things like competitiveness, hockey IQ, and physical play were shown on a scale from below-average to elite. The downside to this is that the reports only to 110 players including goalies but the rankings go to 200. They also go into team draft histories five years deep.

THE BLACK BOOK ($50) – This is THE most in-depth draft guide available. It’s not flashy by any means as it’s all text. No mock drafts, no top-5 lists, it’s straight to business but it’s huge. 667 pages deep to be more specific. The one thing that Hockey Prospects does that I find rad is they include the game reports at the end so you can read what the scouts had to say about a specific player in a specific game. Another thing that they give the reader is actual quotes from scouts be they Hockey Prospect scouts or NHL scouts. Lastly, there’s one thing that annoys me about this guide, the scouting reports go in alphabetical order instead of the order of their ranking.

So depending on what kind of draft nut you are and how much money you’re willing to spend, all three I’d recommend.

I just wanted to give you that preface before getting into what these publications have the Oilers taking with their draft picks. Now, McKenzie and The Hockey News only have up three rounds of players to view and ISS and the Black Book have all 7 rounds available. Therefore two out of the four guides will allow us to see a bit more than the other two.

So let’s get into this.

The Oilers have the following selections in the upcoming draft,

10th
40th
71st
133rd
164th
195th

As you can see there’s a jump from 71st to 133rd, the 4th rounder belongs to Montreal due to the Al Montoya trade.

Below are the players that each of the draft guides above PLUS Bob McKenzie has in those spots where the Oilers will be drafting.

Selection	THN	Bob McKenzie	ISS	Hockey Prospects
10	Ty Smith (LD)	Adam Boqvist (RD)	Joe Veleno (C)	Evan Bouchard (RD)
40	Adam Ginning (LD)	Jacob Olofsson (C)	Danila Galenyuk (LD)	Jake Wise (C)
71	Egor Sokolov (LW)	Allan McShane (C)	Kody Clark (RW)	Milos Roman (C)
133			Billy Moskal (C)	Erik Portillo (G)
164			Dan Kowalczyk (LD)	Blade Jenkins (LW)
195			Linus Nyman (RW)	Isaac Johnson (RW)

How wide open is that? No overlap whatsoever eh? This draft is going to be a lot of fun!

If you had to pick one, which group would you go with?

Personally, I’m drawn to how McKenzie’s is starting. I’m real high on Boqvist and I hear good things about Olofsson. McShane is not a player I’m familiar with but Hockey Prospects have him as an undersized playmaker with a quick release and good anticipation defensively.

But that Hockey Prospects group has some nice names in there. I’d have no issues if the Oilers selected Bouchard at all. A right-handed dman who has been labeled as one of the best passers in the draft is fine with me. Jake Wise is a name that has climbed up the rankings over the year. He’s a guy with great vision and passing skills. A very hard worker and he’s a 200ft player. Milos Roman is a name I’ve read now and then online and from what I can gather his skating is deceptively good. He’s a very cerbral player and he’s a very responsible player at both ends of the ice.

Your thoughts?

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Tag Archives: Montreal Canadiens Trade Rumors

BLH’s Trade Rumors and Ramblings: Puljujarvi, Sens Looking for Dman, and What’s going on with Kyle Turris?