Report Card: THIS Has Been Kent Hughes BEST Move | Montreal Canadiens

Report Card: THIS Has Been Kent Hughes BEST Move | Montreal Canadiens

Do you know Ken Hughes’s first ever move when he was hired on by the Montreal Canadians? He picked he picked up Kale Kle off waiverss. That was Ken Hughes’s first ever move on December 11th, 2021. He’s made a lot of interesting moves between the Kale Kle acquisition on waivers to the point where he’s making trades involving uh dealing from a position of strength. He had a lot of depth on the right side of the D to the point where they were greenlight go and Logan Mayu for Zachary Buluk. So let’s circle back on the general manager of the Montreal Canadians. Let’s throw out some grades for GM Kent Hughes and let’s start from the draft through free agent frenzy where I think he’s done an absolute bangup job. If I had to give him a score, I’m going to give him like an 8.7 on 10. Yes, he didn’t get the 2C, but he upgraded his position. He got a 25-year-old superstar to come over to Montreal because he wanted to. He identified a 22-year-old who’s just scratching the surface in Zack Balduk. Call me a homer, I don’t care. I call it like I see it. I think he’s done a bangup job. Let’s start, Marco, with your impressions from the draft through free agent frenzy and we’ll work our way back with some of the moves that he’s made. So, what’s your grade for the summer of Ken Hughes 2025? I think it’s still unfinished, but if it were to stop right now, it’s probably going to be a B for me. Um, okay. Also like an 80 82, I guess. Um, not because I’m necessarily down on it. I think the no adoption acquisition is a home run. The the way that they’ve set up their defense for years to come is fantastic. And I think they’re putting a lot of money on the fact that they already have a core like you basically have a 90 point center in Nick Suzuki. You have a, you know, potential future 40 goal scorer in Cole Coughfield. You have the big power, one of the big power forwards of the future and your Islausski and then your star is Demid Demidov. So you have a core nucleus at Ford, but they’re just really missing that one final piece to be like we can start going forward. And I feel like until they do that, fans will kind of not be satisfied. And I totally understand. You mean geez, everything is in place. You make an aggressive move for Dobson, you know, the next step is obvious. Um, so I guess until that’s kind of settled, I couldn’t really give him like an A. Um, I think they did a really solid job at the draft. I think the Book trade was a savvy one uh in terms of being able to get a guy that’s again going to grow with the rest of the team. Like you got a 22y old that projects as a top six forward that already has NHL experience and was, you know, scoring at a higher at at a 23 goal clip throughout the season. like that’s really tough to get. So to get that controlled ready local boy as well um I think was excellent and I think it was a good trade for for St. Louis as well in terms of their needs. So again, I give that trade a solid A, but it’s the fact that the top six, even though it was something that they set out to do, even though the to me the top six being unchanged just drags it down a little bit, and that’s not a, you know, like you you win some, you lose some, right? You can’t have the you don’t have a perfect offseason. I don’t think correct. I don’t think there’s a team right now that’s had, in my opinion, a perfect off season. I think there are teams that have done really well. The only team I would say that had a perfect offseason and I think it just continues from the perfect season is the Florida Panthers and being able to lock down that entire court. Yeah. But like in terms of like teams trying to win it, I don’t think that there’s necessarily anybody that had a perfect offseason. So the way that I look at Ken Hughes is he’s definitely in the top echelon of the GMs uh in terms of what was done this summer to better the organization being it through a rebuild, a retool, or just building up. Mhm. that um I don’t again I don’t think they’re done. I’m extremely interested to see what they’re going to do to get under the salary cap because I can tell you one thing. If they’re looking at a guy like Genny Khnetsv and they’re showing interest in him and you know that that’s going to be a bonus um oriented because he’s 35 and up, they cannot use LTI this year if they’re planning on because those bonuses just like the prospect bonuses carry over to next year. And I think you and I both know that next year I think the Canadian might want to spend just a little bit. So I’m I I’d be very interested to see how they go about shedding cap space. I think everybody kind of sees the writing on the wall for Carrie Price. I think that contract has to move that it’d be San Jose, Pittsburgh or another team. So that’s that. And then it’s going to be interesting to see how they try to improve their top six. Like Kent Hughes said at at his uh July 1 press conference that he’d be comfortable starting the season with what he has. I think that’s GM talk for we’re good. Yeah, we won’t say no to improving either, right? So, that’s giving his current roster the thumbs up while also looking to improve his team. Historically speaking, Kent Hughes has always completed a trade at the draft and then sometime in a weird, you know, late July, mid June, which is ironically exactly the time I take my vacations. I’m expecting Kent Hughes to drop something while I’m on vacation. Perfect. Perfect. And I think sometimes, you know, when we’re throwing out grades and analyzing the body of work that Kent Hughes and his team have done in Montreal, like, you know, when you’re on the job and you make a lot of moves, sometimes we forget, right? So, you know, the Montreal Canadians were able to get Philip Meshar and Emil Hinaman as part of the return for Tyler Tofoley, right? Um our Tory Lechin got them Justin Baron. Okay. Maybe a little bit of a swing and a miss in that one. Exactly. And when you look a little bit deeper than that, a second round pick. That’s a fact, right? Um and when we talk about some of the other moves that they’ve been able to do when they traded Brett Kulak, they got part of the package, a second round pick, and they use that pick to draft Lane Hudson. So, I mean, this is the beginning, you know, first year and a bit of Ken Hughes’s timeline, but I’m going to tell you something. What I think trumps all of those things for me that allows me to have what I think is a hard opinion on Ken Hughes, and I mean that in a compliment complimentary way, is yeah, I think he is rep prioritize this market. I believe that Ken Hughes and Jeff Gorton no longer they don’t really care that strongly about the outside influence. I think they have a vision and I don’t think there is any voice, any face, any opinion that will penetrate that vision that alters what they want to do to build this team up. They’re not cutting corners. They have patience. I believe they have repprioritized building the hockey club up versus trying to build a hockey club while also playing politics in a very unique province in this country. And that to me is the biggest improvement of this franchise. And I believe Ken Hughes is the best general manager to direct this team since the days of Sarah Seavard. Yeah, I think the I think his biggest win is not any of the players he’s acquired to be honest with you. It’s making Montreal desirable again. Amen. I think when you have a no adoption that’s wanting to go to Montreal that’s willing to take a five five to 10% pay cut to come to Montreal compared to what he was being offered by Columbus, right? um you know his agent knew right away where he wanted to go and that’s his he said it he’s his childhood team it’s the team closest to him you know from the Maritimes that he used to watch all the time and you know to me that hasn’t happened in a while I remember and again like no disrespect to the people but I remember during the Bob Gayy and Mark Burge training days like it was so difficult to bring in guys that grew up as Canadians fans they didn’t want to be anywhere near the team they would just the team as leverage to try and get a better contract back somewhere else and the Canadians were always the second la second second to last team. I remember when I was reporting the Noah Dobson stuff. I was getting all fans with these like historical trauma just coming like nothing happens to Montreal. Well, that’s a fact. Well, okay. You see, you have that trauma. So, the thing that I’m trying to say is, you know, Kent Hughes is slowly trying to is slowly healing that trauma. Not only are you getting guys that want to be here, you’re getting guys that are taking less to stay here. And I think that’s the key, right? Like Cole Cfield’s contract in hindsight, it’s just really valuable contract already in year one. Exactly. I think your Lovsky’s contract with the way the cap is increasing is going to be valuable almost by next year. I think Suzuki’s on a steel contract. Wasn’t Kent Hughes, but he’s on a steel of a contract. And Kaden Ghoulie’s contract, I mean, for the love of God. Oh, baby. What? 700,000 less than Alexander Romanov next season. and this for the next five or six if this contract kicks in now. So that’s a steal. Like all these contracts are steals that are going to allow the team to be a little bit more aggressive like a no adoption signing in the future, right? Because the cap is going to go up by like almost 10% a season at this rate. You’re going to be able to do a lot. And so what I think is they’ve created a culture that’s going to prompt teams to want to come here. And I remember Noah Dobson saying this directly. I heard that guys enjoy themselves here. to have fun going to the rink and now plants are being used in a positive light to be a form of energizer to the team as opposed to being an anchor and I think that switch that cultural switch in the room in the stands has completely altered the vision in Montreal and I’ll give another shout out to Canadians fans the four nations be it from the NHL’s standpoint and from players standpoint the four nations solidified Montreal as the cultural hockey mecha cultural hockey mecca in this like I don’t want to be obviously you know we’re not being disrespectful by talking about Ken Hughes and the moves that he’s done but he’s not a man on an island he has a team around him how important has Jeff Gorton’s experience in building up Boston in building up the New York Rangers how important has Jeff Gorton’s um been there done that track record helped Kent Hughes yeah I I think it’s huge. I think it’s huge, man. You know, the guy, one guy came from the agent world, the other guy’s been with two organizations and built them back up again. Yeah, I think that having a two-headed monster in a Montreal market is one of the best decisions that Jeff Molson has ever taken to be honest with you. Um, I think it’s necessary and I think having two guys running, you know, point, you know, uh, Jeff Gordon likes the scouting side of things. Like that’s obviously where he was his strongest and, you know, he’s done really good in that department. I think Boston uh owes him a cup ring, right, because of that or gave him a cup ring because of that and helping to build up their 2011 team. And to be completely honest with you, I think he made some savvy moves at the drafts when he was with the Rangers. I just don’t think he had the right coaches and plays to develop those players into what they could have been. So, you know, and and obviously the rug was pulled out from underneath him by the Rangers, which is questionable in my opinion. That’s that’s on Dolan and and New York Rangers ownership. Yeah, that that’s a James Dolan run organization. I’m just gonna put Yeah, I’m gonna put that there. I have ton of respect for what Jeff Gorton does and the fact that he is willing to have to work in a two uh seater thing. It’s the reason why every offseason there’s always a team that asks to speak to him and every offseason he’s like, “Nah, man. I have it on record that that like like a guy like Jeff Gordon does not want to leave until this job is done.” in good in good part because he didn’t get to finish the job in New York that he set out and now he’s got a good thing going in Montreal and I don’t like again that combination is great and I think having a guy like Kent Hughes who was an agent so a people person great negotiator of contracts as we’ve seen I think I think personally the only bad the only contract where I was like was the Jake Allen contract I think that was the only one and that was like almost a panic move because the market was scarce at that point and Montbo was improving and even then it didn’t really hurt the team to be honest. He’s still got an asset for it. But what I think is really interesting with that combo is they bring about a balance between each other. And I think that’s the key, right? So I think first of all, Kent Hughes’s French greatly improved since he started. I remember I remember his son Jack when I was interviewing for the 2022 draft saying how seriously Kent was in practicing his French so that he could be um eloquent enough to express himself in both languages without issue. Look how that’s come over the last two years, three years, right? Like you have to exactly Jeff Gordon shooting out some French here and there, right? You have to give them credit for that. They have not only created a fun culture for the team, but I feel like even for the media and for the fans, they’re far more accessible, relatable, um, you know, uh, in in in the public eye than previous management teams who used to shy away from that. I think they’re embracing it and that’s part of the culture they’ve built up. There is no closed doors. You know, obviously they’re not going to tell you exactly what they’re planning on doing in terms of trades and whatnot, but there’s no closed doors when it comes to the vision and the, you know, the the the I felt like, for example, with Mark Bers, it was hard to follow the plan, right? It was hard to follow the plan. With them, it’s been very consistent in terms of what the plan is. And so, I think the buyin from fans has been great. The buyin corporately has been great. And I feel like the from players continues to be great. And I think that’s the biggest gift. That’s the biggest job they’ve done with Montreal is just making it what it was, which was a place in the cultural mecca of hockey. I’ll tell you just before we wrap this up, uh, when I think about the best and the worst moves, uh, August 19th, 2024, the Canadians move Jordan Harris to Columbus for Patrick Lane and a se and a second round pick, right? Uh, the Canadians do not make the playoffs if not for Patrick Line and what he did when he was healthy and he came back just before Christmas. And I think if mulligans existed in professional hockey, you probably don’t move Art Turrey Lechen in for Justin Baron. But you did get Alex Kerier to shore up the veteran side of the of the blue line there. But the Patrick Line acquisition for Jordan Harris has to go down as one of the top three moves uh Ken Hughes has made. Would would that be fair for you? Like in his in his entire Yeah. In his in his short like four year shelf life as the general manager. I mean, they got they got so many goals for a guy who’s borderline NHLer at this point. Yeah. But also he’s also taking up 8.7 million on your cap. Like that’s Yeah. Yeah. Like to me the number one move was the acquisition and trading of Shawn Monahan. Yeah. Sure. I’ll make that I’ll make that one move just just for the sake of it all. Right. Yeah. So let’s do that. Um those futures. Yeah. Yeah. But you know that those futures led to Michael H. Yeah. And Doson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. indirect directly, right? So like Right. I love the trade tree. I love trade trees. Yeah, trade trees are great. Um so definitely definitely up there uh in terms of um overall just return. I think in hindsight also the Jeff Petri combo trades where he was able to net a second round pick just to and get rid of um to get 50% or 20% retain Jeff Petri. and one of the second round picks that allowed them to draft Zarovski for cap space. I thought that was excellent as well. Um I think the Zack Bunzuk for for for um uh Logan Mayu trade is going to go down as one of the better ones as well in terms of just the player they got from the excess that they had at that position after the the trade. I think that’s something to keep an eye on. And I think in hindsight I think a lot of people agree with this. I think the Alex Kerier trade was a really valuable trade considering where uh a guy like um Baron was at the time versus what they ended up getting in Carrie. I think that was Yeah. And you’re not stubborn. You know, you checked your ego at the door. You realize, you know what, I made a misstep. Let me Exactly. Let me fix that. Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. And then, you know, I think the you know, the rest is on the draft floor. The rest is in terms of what they’ve done with trading up, drafting guys. But I think, yeah, I, you know, in terms of value, in terms of what they didn’t have to give up, I think Patrick Lani is definitely in the top five of his moves. Um, you know, I think in terms of trade, it’s it’s, you know, everything is really looking good outside of the Alex new Kirby Doc acquisitions. And in my opinion, there’s still room for those guys to prove wrong. I think it’s going to take a significant turnaround uh for both. I think, you know, and have runway to do so. I think I think they can do it to the point where they would be bonafideed players worth of those picks eventually. Uh but that all depends on preparedness and effort and whatnot. So we’ll see where it goes. But definitely you understand the vision. I was just not the biggest fan of a first and a second for an unproven talent like Alex New Hook. But again like there he did have a point last se like not this season that just passed but the one before he was at a 50 plus point pace. So I know. Yeah. You know, if he can find that consistency, if he can stop being so snake bitten, I think that he’ll be a very good complimentary second line player, if not third line player, once the Canadians become very competitive. That’s Marco Demo follow with RG Media.

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If I asked you to give me a number grade for the moves and the work Habs GM, Kent Hughes has managed to pull off, what would that number grade look like?

Shaun Starr and Marco D’Amico go over the body of work Kent Hughes has put together since being the GM of the Montreal Canadiens.

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