As the trade deadline approaches, many rumors are circulating about several players who could change locations in the coming hours. For the Montreal Canadiens, one might think that Kent and Gorton could go after a forward like Robert Thomas to address the issue of a second center or even a goaltender. However, in my opinion, the best option for the Canadiens today is to acquire a right-handed defenseman.
Now the question arises, why would the CH be attracted to the idea of trading for a right-handed defenseman? We can see it with the Canadiens' results on the penalty kill this year; the team is much worse in this aspect of the game. Last year, Martin Saint-Louis' squad was good in this area, evidenced by their 80.9% efficiency, which ranked 9th in the NHL in this regard. But this season, the Canadiens have dropped to 76.5% efficiency in this area, good for 27th place. The sports columnist fromTVA Sport Dany Dubépointed out a very good statistic that I find very relevant to this topic. During the 24-25 playoffs last year, the two best teams on the power play in this spring dance were the Canadiens (33.3%) and the Kings (40%), however, both teams were eliminated in the first round. So, the fact that a team performs well on the power play does not mean it will fail in the playoffs, but what Dany Dubé means by that, in my opinion, is that the power play does not do everything for a team.
Certainly, the loss of David Savard is the major factor that is causing the Canadiens to not perform as well as last season on the penalty kill. During the summer, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton acquired defenseman Noah Dobson to improve the blue, white, and red defense, but with all due respect to Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble, neither can replace the effectiveness of David Savard in this regard.
It is the gap left by him that the Canadiens have not yet managed to fill; it is depth on defense that the team of Nick Suzuki is lacking, and that is why we need to trade for a right-handed defenseman before 3:00 PM today.
Now, who could the Canadiens go after? In my opinion, Colton Parayko would be a very interesting option for the Habs; however, he has refused to waive his no-trade clause and therefore to be traded to the Buffalo Sabres. He is still available, but according to sources from Tva Sport,the 32-year-old Canadian does not wish to end up on an Eastern team and has a preference for California. I therefore deduce that the Montreal Canadiens are likely still on his no-trade list, but a place like Montreal can attract many players. Many other right-handed defensemen would be intriguing for the Habs, such as Nick Perbix in Nashville, the 6-foot defenseman Filip Hronek, or Zach Whitecloud from the Calgary Flames. All big right-handed defensemen who can play significant minutes on the penalty kill.
In any case, I know one thing: today will be very interesting!