This fall, the Habs training camp will be particularly interesting to watch. There will be many battles for positions, and we sense that young players will be pushing to prove they deserve their place in the NHL.
As the rebuild progresses, we’ll start to see the effects on NHL training.
That said, for the moment, the youngsters pushing forward are mainly on the blue line, where it’s going to be quite a struggle. Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle and David Savard can rest easy, but there will be competition behind them.
Xhekaj, Harris, Struble, Hutson, Mailloux, Barron, Reinbacher (less likely) and the list goes on: there will be many called up, but few chosen.
Up front, it’s a different story. Joshua Roy is a youngster who’s likely to make the club, but he’s probably the only one with a chance of graduating.
That’s why Ryan Szporer’s recent piece for The Hockey Writers surprised me, especially when he mentions that if Kent Hughes is to have one priority between now and the end of the off-season, it’s to trade Christian Dvorak.
Our colleagues at RumeursDeTransaction spoke to you about this paper recently.
In it, Szporer explains that trading Dvorak would solve “several problems” in Montreal. In fact, he claims that the return of Kirby Dach will push Alex Newhook to the wing, which will probably push a guy like Joshua Roy out of the top-6.
And he doesn’t want to see Roy end up in a “Jesse Ylönen” situation, where he doesn’t have the offensive role to unlock.
That said, even if Dach is back, there’s still going to be a place in the top-6. It would be surprising if the first line (Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovský) were dismantled, but on the second unit, Dach and Newhook are going to need a winger.
In my eyes, Joel Armia is the logical candidate, but if Joshua Roy forces the club’s hand at camp, he can turn things around.
In any case, that said, I don’t really see how trading Dvorak (a center) would really help the Habs open up a spot for Roy (a winger). And considering that Dvorak probably isn’t a player in high demand on the trade market, you’d think Kent Hughes would have to pay to get rid of a guy who 1) isn’t really a problem and 2) will be a free agent at the end of the season.
Sending him to Columbus to swing salaries in a deal for Patrik Laine would make sense. On the other hand, there aren’t enough youngsters pushing for a position in town right now for the Habs to be willing to pay to get rid of Dvorak.
If Owen Beck steals the show at camp and demonstrates that he belongs in the NHL this season (as a fourth center, for example), the reality will be different. That said, I expect Beck to spend the year in Laval.
And ultimately, if a team wants Dvorak at the deadline, he can leave then. But instead of paying to get rid of a guy who’s going to fill in as third center until the youngsters arrive, we might as well wait for his contract to expire in ten months or so, right?
