CP169872546(1)

Yesterday at 11:08 AM

MONTREAL — Dead last in the NHL, staring up at every other team in the league — and at the best odds of drafting first overall — isn't what the Montreal Canadiens were aiming for this season.

But it's hard to see it as the worst thing for them.

It's one of the main reasons general manager Kent Hughes isn't throwing his floundering team a life preserver at the moment.

Not that a trade of significance is at his disposal 17 games in, halfway through the second month of the season and 111 days from the deadline. 

But even if one or two were there to be made, with Hughes having the assets to pay the premium prices he'd be looking at from his position and at this time of year, the incentive just isn't there. Those moves wouldn't vault the Canadiens as far up the standings as they'd like, and they'd only take them further away from securing a brighter future.

It would be one thing if the team organically dug itself out of this hole without intervention from the GM, if it came together and went on a run that brought it back into the mix for a playoff spot. Hughes could certainly live with that, knowing it would be a meaningful step forward for a young group learning how to win — even if it cost the Canadiens a premium draft position. 

But he's doing the only thing that makes sense at this juncture: Nothing.

"When you're losing, you want to give everything to your team to give it a better chance, but you have to be patient and stay the course," Hughes told reporters from the GM meetings in Toronto earlier this week. "We won't do short-term things that would affect our long-term plan."

It's also why the GM hasn't plucked anyone off a red-hot Laval Rocket team yet to give the Canadiens a boost.

"It's important to learn how to win at each level, and it also matters to give them a chance to do it down there," said Hughes. "We for sure look at whether this one or that one can help us right now, but we have to consider if bringing them in and taking them out of that environment would help or hurt their development. There's no easy answer, and it's not always black and white, but we're trying to be guided in our decisions by what would be best in the long term."

Information is power in that process, and Hughes has taken a lot of it from watching the Canadiens stumble out to a 5-10-2 start.

As he said, prior to their loss to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, "In a way, we do learn more about them when they're losing and going through adversity."

"The life of an athlete isn't easy, and we often speak about the different ways of dealing with pressure," Hughes continued. "When you go through things like this (a six-game losing streak), you see how the players react individually and how they react as a team…"

And you learn who will be able to help you both now and in the future, and also who might help you collect more valuable assets to bring this team to where it wants to go down the line.

Again, trading players out isn't what Hughes was hoping to do this season. 

But it's far from the worst course of action for a team that’s in Year 3 of a rebuild and hoping to take major steps forward in Years 4 and 5.

Hughes knows that, even if he doesn't intend to spring into action immediately. 

He'll hope for the Canadiens to do a 180 in the standings while praying that, if they can't, pending unrestricted free agents Jake Evans, Christian Dvorak, Joel Armia and David Savard continue to boost their individual values to give him the best hand to deal from at the deadline.

He'll have to hope Mike Matheson, who's a year away from being free to sign with whomever he wants, remains productive and healthy to potentially net his team its greatest return come Mar. 7.

The losing making the Canadiens a seller is more short-term pain to deal with, but it'll add to the long-term gain already in the offing.

Adding any one of James Hagens, Porter Martone, Michael Misa or Matthew Schaefer — the top-ranked prospects in the 2025 Draft — to the promising young nucleus of players in the Canadiens' system certainly won't hurt.

Ivan Demidov, who was taken fifth overall by the team in last year's draft, is excelling in his first (and only) season in the KHL and will be with the Canadiens next fall. Michael Hage, who was taken 21^st and is generating a point per game through his first nine at the University of Michigan, is making a strong case to join him. And prospect Jacob Fowler, who might just be the best goaltender outside of the NHL, has a .950 save percentage through eight games of his sophomore season at Boston College.

The three of them figure to be at the core of a future contender, and they're all getting closer to boosting the Canadiens.

So are Owen Beck, Joshua Roy, Logan Mailloux, Adam Engstrom, Luke Tuch and Jakub Dobes. 

When you look at what those players are doing in Laval, you can see why Hughes might be incentivized to start buying as early as this coming summer. 

Healthy returns for David Reinbacher (chosen fifth overall in 2023) and Patrik Laine, who suffered knee injuries that disabled them from helping the Canadiens now, only increase that incentive.

Hughes will have to wait to act on it for now, just as he'll have to ride out this difficult time his team is currently going through. 

The GM was hoping for progress this season but, until the Canadiens show something different, he'll have to digest some regression. 

Hughes knew that might be the case, saying several times between last season and this one that he's well aware development rarely follows a linear path.

Still, so long as he doesn't meddle with it at this juncture, this will be a step back followed by several forward.