2022-10-07 07:00:00
There is nothing at the moment in the office of Kent Hughes in Brossard. No frame to brighten up the white walls, no plants, no photos. And the large table he requested to have all the staff of his organization at a glance has not yet arrived.
There is a table, a chair, and a television set with a digital video recorder so that the general manager of the Canadian can watch replays of games in slow motion.
That’s all.
It would be tempting to say that this reflects the state of his team on the ice, but Hughes is not the GM of the Chicago Blackhawks or the Arizona Coyotes, two teams that have deliberately stripped down in a strategy of scuttling . The Canadian didn’t do that. But Hughes’ office symbolizes the fact that he is at the beginning of a process and that other priorities are monopolizing his time.
One day, Hughes will walk into his office and people from the organization will have it decorated for him while he’s gone. It won’t be as easy with the team he and Jeff Gorton are building.
The Canadian is regarding to begin a year unprecedented in its recent history, having confessed openly to his fans that he did not expect to be competitive this season. And the supporters, for the most part, seem to have responded by giving him a high-five virtual. It’s exceptional to see the Canadian operate in such a setting, and it gives Hughes the leeway to do what needs to be done in order to plant the tree properly, properly install the stake, and grow the tree. team to mature in three or four years.
When Hughes was seen signing Kirby Dach to a new four-year contract two weeks before the start of training camp, it was not just a show of confidence in the newcomer and in the abilities of the organization to develop it well. It was also a window on the schedule that the Canadiens gave themselves in order to become competitive.
“What I can say is that we did our homework,” Hughes said during a lengthy interview with Athletic, earlier this week. We made enough phone calls, we talked to a lot of people and we felt comfortable knowing that it was a calculated risk that we were willing to take. It’s unclear if Kirby Dach will become a top-6 forward in the National Hockey League. We hope so, and we believe it will be, but we don’t know. »
The risk is calculated because the Canadiens have more information regarding a player who has already had a taste of the NHL for three seasons, who is young enough at 21 to use his transfer from Chicago to Montreal as a wake-up call that he reaches his full potential, and because if the Canadiens had decided to draft a center with the 13th choice obtained in return for Alexander Romanov, bringing this hope to fruition – without certainty that it will work – would have taken several more years .
If we take the example of Dach, it is because it reflects the curve in which the CH is engaged.
By keeping an overview of the season that the team is regarding to experience, by avoiding being too offended by a losing streak or special teams that are not working at full capacity, it will be possible to consider the success of this campaign under a single criterion: at the individual and collective levels, was there progress between the first and the 82nd match?
That’s what Hughes will want to see from Dach, his young defenders, Juraj Slafkovsky, his core of young leaders, and even the veterans he hopes to enhance as the season progresses.
It will be necessary to see what proportion of players, over the course of the season, will have contributed to the upward trajectory of the team, towards this horizon of three or four years.
“Everyone seems absorbed in who’s going to start the season, who’s not, but it’s a fluid process. It’s a day-to-day thing,” said Hughes, who prefers not to be swayed too much by the tiny window of training camp. Camp is just one small part of the development process for young players.
And this is where the fact that the Canadian confesses in a year of development becomes important, because it gives him time to do things.
Juraj Slafkovsky (Éric Bolté/USA TODAY Sports)
In front of Slafkovsky, who admitted to feeling nervous regarding his presence with the big club at the start of the campaign, Hughes did not hesitate to put things in perspective.
“I told him, ‘you might play the first game (in Montreal) and the other 81 in Laval. You might play the first game in Laval and the other 81 in Montreal. Or something in between.’ »
It wasn’t said to place a sword of Damocles over the head of his overall first choice, quite the contrary. It was to make him understand that he would continually have to prove himself, and that his presence in the formation during the first match was not an end in itself. It was not a passing exam.
“We are already all-in towards you,” Hughes added reassuringly. There’s a reason we drafted him, and like I said before, we want the best player, not the best player at 18. We knew he had things to add to his game, or to improve, and I said to him, ‘I don’t want to give you 22 things to do and have your thoughts paralyze you on the ice. Step by step, we will try to add elements to your game that correspond to what we think, and to the long-term vision we have of you for a player like you, with your qualities. But we don’t need to do that today. »
We will have to repeat it often, but neither Slafkovsky nor anyone will come to save the Canadian this season.
Except that’s not the goal.
To use the expression of poker, the Canadian is also ” all-in to development, the cornerstone of everything he does right now. The team didn’t throw it all down like the Blackhawks did. Instead of raising the white flag and starting over because their hand isn’t good enough, Gorton and Hughes have chosen to invest time in maximizing the one they have.
Hughes felt that was the approach to take when he took office last January.
“We knew we were out of the playoffs – not mathematically but for all intents and purposes – when we got there, but I also found that from an environmental perspective, tearing down our tent and just waiting for the draft hoping to choose first would have been a mistake. And I still think the right process for us is that every game counts, and we try to win every game. Except that we are not going to do it to the detriment of the development of our players. It doesn’t matter if it’s a young player or a veteran; if we want to achieve our goals, we must see the individuals improve, and we must see the group improve.
“In this context, it might seem hypocritical to arrive at the deadline and trade a good player which would reduce our ability to be competitive collectively for the rest of the season. But I don’t mind. For me, it is not incompatible. But someone from the outside might see it that way. »
But no, Kent. It’s pretty clear to everyone that trying to boost the value of some veterans and trade them at the trade deadline is the right thing to do in contractual terms and in terms of age curves. And then it will also have the related utility of dragging the team down for the next draft. These will be perceived as legitimate, coherent gestures that will in no way threaten the establishment of a winning mentality.
Either way, the Habs have a good chance of finishing in the bottom five overall. The Blackhawks and Coyotes might well end up behind him, but how many other teams – at least on paper – are predicting such tough times? Philadelphia Flyers maybe? The San Jose Sharks? The Seattle Kraken?
Even within its section, the Habs will have a lot to do to get ahead of teams like Ottawa, Detroit and Buffalo, which are more advanced than them in their reconstruction trajectory. It may be said that the CH has improved compared to last year, especially on the attack, the fact remains that it has a good chance of flirting with the bottom of the classification of the Association Is because his rivals have improved more than him.
Connor Bedard (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
So it’s not a bad year to do what the Canadiens do and dedicate a year to development. Eight months from a draft that makes everyone salivate, the CH already has one of the weakest teams in the NHL, in addition to already having pieces in place that suggest success in a few years.
Hughes would surely like to draft Connor Bedard next summer (who wouldn’t?), but betting everything on the hope that the young prodigy lands in Montreal would have been very ambitious. What are the odds that the Canadian will finish last and then win the draw for a second year in a row?
Fortunately, it’s not just Bedard in this auction. Adam Fantilli, Matvei Michkov and Leo Carlsson are all hopefuls who will be key pieces for a rebuilding team.
And the Canadiens don’t need to bare themselves like Chicago or Arizona to give themselves a good chance of getting one of them.
During our interview with Hughes, we had to express our reservations regarding the Canadian’s approach to Stanley Cup contender status. Not in terms of the decision to bet on development, nor the time the team intends to take to do things right, but in terms of the end result it might give if everything goes as hoped.
In goal, no hope of the organization – whether Cayden Primeau, Jakub Dobes or another – has yet demonstrated that he will become a superior goaltender to Jake Allen. It may very well be that the Canadian’s future between the posts lies either with another team or in an upcoming draft.
On defense, the team is packed with depth and has plenty of defensemen who, at their full potential, can aspire to become top-4 defensemen in the NHL. We think first of Kaiden Guhle, Justin Barron, Jordan Harris, Logan Mailloux and Lane Hutson. But there probably isn’t a number one defender in this group. Even Guhle, if he one day becomes a new kind of Jacob Trouba, will only achieve the status of first pair defender depending on the player he plays with.
And in attack, the Canadian does have first-line players, but until further notice, it lacks the kind of engine that propels very good teams to the Stanley Cup.
If on the one hand we can rejoice in the fact that the progress of Ottawa, Detroit and Buffalo will help the Canadiens with a view to the next draft, we must realize that these three formations also count on a greater quantity of top talent in their respective banks of hopes.
The CH will need to add even more talent, whether through the repechage or when the increase in the salary cap, in two years, will have placed it in an advantageous position.
“We’re going to make changes,” says Hughes. We might do them in October, we might do them in January, we will do them at the trade deadline, but we will make trades, and it will still be to acquire either hopes or draft picks. We have two first-round picks. In an ideal world, we would end up with three first-round picks. And then we use that guaranteed value to see what we can do, whether it’s moving to get higher picks or whatever, depending on what we see in the draft. »
There are two types of movements that should be followed with interest. First those destined to continue acquiring assets, presumably from the group of players who will become free agents without compensation next season. Then, those that might be done in order to buy time, particularly on the blue line, so that none of the young defensemen that the organization develops end up in a position where they are just surviving.
“We’re not going to get someone to make us slightly better on the blue line. We’re going to bring in someone to help put our young defenders in the right position to develop. »
The absence of Joel Edmundson, who has a lower back injury, is clouding the waters, as the team has no idea how long he will be out. An acquisition in defense would be more likely if the Canadian knew that Edmundson would miss a long period, but at the moment this is data that he lacks.
But whether Edmundson is in the lineup or not, the right flank remains a problem Hughes would prefer to address.
“We have a lack, we have no depth on the right side, he agreed. And part of the decision-making process is really to ask yourself: if we have to add someone, whether it’s through waivers or a trade or whatever, is that a temporary solution or a permanent part of the organization? If it’s a temporary solution, it’s because we think we need time, or the players need time, and we’re not 1000% convinced that playing in the NHL is the right place for one player or another. »
The Canadian has the first right of inspection over the players subject to waivers. Unless you consider more established players whose contracts are a problem – which would explain their presence on waivers – the chances of finding a temporary solution on defense are obviously better than finding something more permanent.
Long-term solutions often cost more, both in wages and in assets to acquire them.
“We’re watching organizations that have too many defensemen, who aren’t going to be able to stick to a 23-man roster without putting someone on waivers, and at the same time we try to keep watching our players,” Hughes said. . Again, it’s game to game; a player has a very good game, then he loses power in the next game. I hate reading too much from a single game, but if I’m not sure regarding a young player, the best solution is the American League rather than forcing him into this situation.
“On the other side, or on the side of the 31 other teams, we must also recognize that several of these teams, like us with the surplus of attackers, make calls. So if they can trade a defenseman, they’re going to trade him, and that’s going to affect waivers. It also influences the decisions we make, because we have to decide if we want to enter the trading market. If we go ahead, do we make a trade even if we have the first choice on waivers? I think it depends if it’s a workaround or a potential (long term) help. »
Three avenues are therefore available to the Canadian: start the season with some of the rookies who have been under observation since the start of the camp, turn to internal players who can ensure a transition (Corey Schueneman and Otto Leskinen), or else turn to external solutions.
Can you allow us to use our digital video recorder too and come back to a sequence?
Hughes tells us: “You also have to recognize that many of these teams, like us with the surplus of forwards, make calls. So if they can trade a defender, they will trade him”.
At the turn of a sentence, Hughes therefore recognized that he was making calls in order to reduce his number of attackers. This is perhaps a third way in which the Canadian might complete a trade, even if it seems unlikely to us at the moment.
Two names in particular do not seem to occupy any defined space in the CH chessboard and one wonders, when Hughes says he is trying to solve his surplus of attackers, if it is not them who are mainly in question.
We are talking here regarding Mike Hoffman and Joel Armia.
We spoke to the GM before Armia suffered an injury and his start to the season was compromised. There may not be as much offensive surplus now, especially if we add his case to that of Paul Byron, whose future career is increasingly uncertain. But the enigmatic Finn, who has three years left on a contract at $3.4 million a year, and Hoffman (two years at $4.5 million) aren’t exactly the best value in the NHL by current times.
“I think our coach values those two players, maybe more than the media does,” Hughes said. So we’re going to keep watching them and seeing how they behave and how they fit in with the group, and how they compare to potential alternatives, to those who are pushing back. I know Marty thinks Joel has more to give offensively and hopes he’ll be able to get him. And I think he views Hoffman as a hockey-savvy guy, whereas Mike Hoffman has always been viewed as a shooter/scorer. And I see what he sees in Mike. »
We are going to agree not to agree on this issue.
Notwithstanding these two players, the whole strategy of the Canadian is interesting and solid, whether it pays dividends this season or not. However, it presents a major challenge: the team will try to develop its young players, to offer them the best environment to familiarize themselves, learn and improve, and at the same time it will try to find ways to increase the value of certain players with the aim of exchanging them at the best possible price.
To what extent will these two objectives be reconcilable?
Trying to put everyone in situations where they will be successful when the environment will sometimes feel like a loser is not an easy task. Perhaps a winning situation for a veteran whose value we want to boost is to use him profusely and give him opportunities to produce, and a winning situation for a young person is to use him sparingly and not not burn it?
It would be convenient if that were the case, but one suspects the reality won’t be that simple.
(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
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