Quiet NHL Trade Market & Here’s WHY It Will Pick Up | Montreal Canadiens

Quiet NHL Trade Market & Here’s WHY It Will Pick Up | Montreal Canadiens

What happened to qualifying offers, Mr. Deikica? What happened to the abundance of trades? What happened to uh guys like Pier Maguire coming out and saying earth shattering moves coming up in the National Hockey League? Uh power agent Alan Walsh on social media saying, “Get ready. This is going to be a turbulent week in hockey.” Guess what? The week has come and gone. And we’re not talking about qualifying. We’re not talking about uh these uh restricted free agent offer sheets. We’re not talking about seismic earthshattering moves. Um, why don’t you make some hockey fans happy? Let’s talk about GMs getting off their Muskoka chairs and getting back on the phone. Marco, are moves happening here? Uh, well, um, how about I put it this way? Every executive that we’ve spoken to at RG seems to be of the ilk that things will pick up in the next couple of weeks. I think that a lot of general managers uh closed the up shop, went fishing, went to the cottage, kind of hanging out and uh that generally tends to happen. And then you get like a flurry of trades generally in the August period prior to um prior to train um training camp. And I think one of the things to keep into consideration here is, you know, there are teams that are very unhappy with how how the how the offseason has gone. There are teams that desperately wanted to improve and feel like they missed the boat on a lot of players, right? How would you gauge the Canadians? Um, how would you gauge the Canadians attitude towards their summer? Like they’re one of I think that they’re happy with what they’ve done, would like to improve. Yeah. Would like to improve if they can, but won’t sell the farm to make it happen. That’s the way I see it. I think the only thing the Canadians really need to do is to get under the cap. I think that’s the that’s the biggest thing. Yeah, we spoke about that this week too on the channel. Exactly. Right. So they that’s that to me is the major thing. Now if they can go and get a top six player and they feel like they have the opportunity to do that, they’ll do it and they’ll continue to explore it. But to the point or to the aggressiveness of say a team like the Calgary Flames that would like to still be in it while having a guy like Raasmus Anderson who wants out is a different story. The Toronto Maple Leafs having lost Mitch Martner and are trying to How do you How do you account for the 100red points you just lost? Well, they’re trying to find a way to do that, be they on their back end or, you know, at forward. And so that’s that’s a team to to watch for. Definitely. That’s a money point. That’s a money money point. You know, like we talked about the league is very big on saving money. Like we know this was surprising. Darren Dreger telling us on TSN 690 that he believes the decentralized draft will be a oneandone. Whoops. Well, that’s changed this weekend. the weekend that came and went as we learned. Nope, they’re going back to it. Michael Anlau and the Ottawa Senators voted against it. Anlau saying he believes that it’s a very special moment for a player to get called up to put the sweater on and to have that iconic photo. I agree with the Sense owner. So, these penny pinching uh owners in hockey are going to keep their money. So, Mark, go out and spend it. Go out and make some trades. Get creative with your money. Let’s go here already. Yeah. Well, I mean the thing is is that there’s nobody to spend it on. Well, there isn’t. Like I know there’s no centers, but look at the look at what’s available. Like we were talking about the Canadians showing interest in Kousnets. I know. And people took that as there’s a contract coming and he’s going to sign and it’s no, but if you’re showing if you’re calling Kousnets’s camp, it’s because there’s not that much left on the on the field that wouldn’t involve a trade. Now, obviously, the Canadians aren’t going to offer him a contract, but they definitely inquired in terms of like what the expectation was and in terms of fit and whatnot. And then after the Balzuk trade, you know, I don’t think that that was ever going to happen. You know, they they felt like there was no room for him, but they definitely checked in prior to July 1, I can confirm that. So, the reason why they’re doing that is because they’re covering their bases because they knew it would be an allout brawl to get you know the players because we saw them all getting signed uh you know June 30th uh one after the other and so the market died and I think it’s the same it’s going to be the same problem with the 2026 uh market as well. Everyone’s looking at all these guys that are going to be free agents and July 1st, 2026. I guarantee you maybe 20% of those players get there because because you’re going to see another push for this. Where this is going to open stuff up is when the quality of existing players increases beyond the amount of teams that want to be competitive. And that’s the problem in this day and age right now. coming out of this, coming out of the flat cap, you’re seeing a never-before-seen level of par. And you add that never-beforeseen level of par with a never-beforeseen level of fiscal improvement year-over-year with the cap going up by almost 10% a year, right? And that creates a situation where you don’t have your you’re going to run out of options of where to spend your money. It’s going to make you it’s going to create battles for players in terms of how much can I offer you, how much can I offer you. Agents love this because they negotiate based on cap percentage, not the total amount. So, it’s it’s going to change the dynamic, but when it comes to the trade market, one thing that really surprises me, and I think um I think I had an executive kind of allude this to me, is there’s too much parody in this league right now. the teams aren’t willing to pack it in in the summer and project themselves to be a bottom feeding team until the Thanksgiving period. And I had one executive tell me point blank said, “I don’t really care for the market right now.” Yeah, some players may shake loose, some players may become available, some trades may happen. I’m interested to see the teams that panic towards November. Yeah. And I know this sucks because everybody wants trades now, but I want to see the teams that panic towards November, realize they’re not good enough, sell off what they need to sell off, and then go balls to the wall for Gavin McKenna. Well, that So, there’s two things there. One, we spoke about this on the channel this week. I get it. I would probably be of the same mindset. I’d be paranoid to move the 2026 first round pick, but like what about a team like the New York Rangers? Everybody’s comfortable looking at that roster saying, “Man, they really bleeped the bed last year. They’re going to be better. There’s talk. What’s going on with our our Tammy Paneran and the New York Rangers and that relationship?” Like, what are they looking for between the two? Like, where how is this going to end with with what? He stays in New York or he he’s no longer a Ranger and what do the Rangers do? So, like I’m fascinated by the idea of what that executive told you, like who’s going to be the new Rangers in 2526 that come November, you’re like, “Uhoh, we’re a lot worse than we thought. What are we going to do about it? Let’s react.” Now, there’s there’s a couple of situations like that. One of them is also the Seattle Kraken, right? Seattle is just drafted quite well, but just no star, no identifiable star player. New market, right? If you get to a point now where the Pacific divi because Seattle’s basically benefited from the fact that the Pacific division has been uttered trash for the last five years, right? So that that’s what’s allowed them to like not be as terrible as they or not be perceived as bad as as what they actually are and make the playoffs one year. But when you look at the roster, there’s no topline players. There’s arguably one top pair of defenseman and the goalie situation is not so hot. So you basically like you’re you’re sitting there in no man’s land. So what happens if they get to November and they’re in the bottom five of the NHL and they haven’t traded Macan for example and they haven’t looked into trading Alexi and you know they have other players that they could potentially move on for like what happens if for example you have Matty Beneers that continues to have you know a poor season like he did last year and you’re paying you’re locked in on this guy for $7 million for another five years like what do you do? So, it opens up questions like that on teams that are going to be like, listen, we’re teetering on the edge. We’re not going to spend assets to improve. We have young guys coming up next year, mulligan this stuff, and then we’re going to go and and come back at it in the summer, especially Seattle for a state that, you know, a no tax state. They could throw money at guys, right? But that’s something like they have they have a lot of free agents as well that can give them that flexibility. I believe Marchmanson is last year as well. Yeah. Um, so that’s a team to watch for in my honest opinion. you look at the the teams that have older cores that may pack it in early and decide like a little bit like we saw with uh Nashville for example. That’s that’s the team in my head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we saw Nashville make a flurry of trades in that regard. I think if it happens again where Nashville’s in the same boat as they were in November, you’ll see them make trades again to get younger and to trade some other guys off. Like you may see a Ryan O’Reilly trade, for example. you may see, you know, some of the other veterans kind of moved out. You know, they’re trying to build, but you can’t always predict. Another team, for example, St. Louis. We just we talked about him in the last show. If St. Louis sinks and doesn’t have their miraculous uh by uh by decade uh return to form as they we saw in 2019 and 2025. Well, they may also look to sell off some older pieces like Pareo and Cam Fowler and and Braden Shen and kind of go with the youth and call call a mulligan on the year. So again, that’s what teams that’s what some of the smarter schooter general managers are saying. They’re like, well, listen, you know, that you make a trade this summer or that you make a trade in November before or December before the the holiday freeze. That’s the mindset of some of these general managers. That explains why it’s been colder than what we thought because the prices are out of this world. So, let me let me ask you then uh and you’re going to think this is absolutely ridiculous, but I have this vision painted in my head that Ken Hughes is this lioness waiting in the African safari hiding hiding in the well, it’s the the lions don’t go hunting. It’s the the ladies that do all the hunting. Um, and he’s waiting in the tall grass, hunting his prey, tracking his prey, and when the moment strikes, Ken Hughes is going to be ready to f pounce. Is that a good way to describe where the Canadians are at right now, hiding in the tall grass, plotting the time to strike? You look at a you look I always bring this to to the point, the Canadians are not at a point right now where they have what people are looking for. What? A lot of Yes. A lot of what picks a eight a blue chip prospects sounds pretty good. People are not people are not looking for that right now. People might look for that if they see themselves falling off for the season and want to have like a root tool on the fly and come back next season with some of these NHL ready prospects and these extra picks to kind of push themselves to more sustainable success. But if they feel like this is the end of the road, like for example, like you look at Matthew Dar in with the Islanders. If the Islanders have a tough season, yeah, Anders Lee, bye-bye. Jean Gabrielle Pul, bye-bye. Like some of these veterans are going to go and they may, you know, slide to get another top pick to add to their core of young players and they’re they’re, you know, now they have a pretty decent one after the 2025 draft. Yeah, that that’s another option as well, you know, and you look at the the Rangers are at the end of their wit when it comes to prospects, right? I don’t think they’re going to trade Gabriel Perau, but after that, like you’re not dealing with a very wide prospect group. And if they lose Panaran, well then, you know, does that does that signify another retool? Those are that’s what you’re looking for. Th those that is the area that what you’re looking into where it kind of makes sense. So to me, the reason why we haven’t seen earthshattering moves, I’m so sorry, Pier. Um Oh, yeah. I know, but that’s just such an unfortunate thing to say in the middle of July. Um, to me, I think is it just goes to say that the potential for some major trades is definitely there and teams are talking from what I’m hearing. Teams are in constant conversation. I mean, geez, uh, you know, I can tell you that the New Jersey Devils are not necessarily shopping Douggee Hamilton, but man, are they getting calls on Douggee Hamilton. Lots of talk around that. Lots of talk there. And they’re not they’re not openly saying, “Hey, come get your boy.” They’re there’s such a there’s such and this is why I talked about Mike Mat potentially being a valuable piece because he’s worth his contract is half of uh Dungeie Hamilton’s right now. Obviously, he’s doing an extension, but if it’s a team friendly extension, uh you know, the Canadians can also use that to their advantage. Um, so it creates a situation where there’s like secondary markets for trade. And I think that’s what teams are expecting. That’s where I could see the Canadians kind of getting into that secondary market. Not the top guys coming in, but like what about the sneaky deals, right? And I think that’s where the that’s what the Canadians are looking for right now is they’re looking for that that sneaky deal. Few people saw the Dobson deal coming, right? few people, you know, uh, of the people I spoke to, up until 24 hours before the trade, no, no one believed it. In fact, you had some posters up until four or five hours before the trade was concluded that were still skeptical about it. So, it it just um, you know, it’s sneaky trades like that. So, I feel like that’s where the Canadians would be. if a player becomes available or if the price drops on the player or if the team changes their vision on what they want to do this season, that’s where they would come in. But right now, there are three teams that are verifiably tanking. Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Jose, those are the those are the three you’re looking at that are absolutely tanking. Every other team has tried to improve in some facet or the other. You look at the Philadelphia Flyers. Yeah. You know, I thought that doubling down on the rebuild would probably be the way to go. I don’t think they want to do that. And that may be that might come to the detriment of their center depth because they don’t really have a a topline center prospect no matter how much they want to promote Lenenko or uh you know a guy like uh no not Kindle sorry but Nesbbit like not I don’t think that’s enough right so there we’ll see what happens with them but that’s a team I could see also you know being like I know I’m in it and then try to sell off some guys I watched last week I watched a bit Christian D’vor I had like a 9-minute introductory press conference in Philadelphia. The guy looked to to use a word miserable. Just my perspective. Who knows if they got him right out of bed or whatever. But anyways, good luck. God bless Christian D’vorak in Philadelphia. One of the veterans, the Montreal Canadians. I don’t know, man. You get a how do you you get like a what is it? A 20% increase in salary. 25% increase in salary um playing like like with the season that he had. I I’d be happy personally, but but Christian D’vorak against his visual look uh always is is a very very nice and approachable player. So, oh yeah, great guy. I mean, you saw him he was part of the huddle there, you know. I think he I think they got a really good guy, but at the end of the day, I think Philly was just they had money to spend and they had to spend it and they absolutely wanted a center that could win draws and kind of help insulate their young players. I like it for them um because they’re not they know they’re not going to be necessarily vying for the playoffs next year. They just want to bring their core along. But again, this speaks to what I’m saying right now. Three teams certifiably tanking. Yeah. By November with And it’s not just McKenna. There are some really good players at the top of this draft that I could already tell you like are going to be there there’s a couple of defenseman I’m I’m very eager to talk about on this channel that we’re going to get into eventually for sure. No doubt the top five of this upcoming draft is more hyped, translatable, and just from my viewings better than this past draft that just happened. And I think it’s going to create a situation where again when we get to November, teams are going to turn around and say, you know what, man, we tried. Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Especially the teams that are in the like bottom five and doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. We’re going to sell off. That’s Marco Deco. Follow RG Media at M and do on all your favorite socials. Like and subscribe on our YouTube channel. Thank you so much for all the views and all the constant engagement. I know I can speak for Marco and I say thank you very much. Appreciate it and we’ll catch you again next week.

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