Here’s a question for you: Are there any circumstances that would prompt the Canadiens’ Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes to attempt to sign goaltender Carter Hart of the notorious Hockey Canada Five?
If you don’t know the answer to that, you haven’t been paying attention.
On the other hand, we knew what the Vegas Golden Knights were even before they put out a steaming pile of PR bafflegab to justify signing Hart on Thursday. The Knights claimed that their “core values” have remained the same, which is true — they have none.
Not so Montreal — at least not now, with an organization that learned a huge lesson from the Logan Mailloux draft. Almost from the day Jeff Gorton took over in November 2021, it was clear that the Canadiens were going to be held to a higher standard.
Character and brains were going to matter and the front office was going to take a radically different approach to the business of hockey. With the additions of GM Kent Hughes and head coach Martin St. Louis, the Canadiens were going to buck the maxim of feisty baseball manager Leo Durocher, who proclaimed that “nice guys finish last.”
Not necessarily. Gorton and Hughes earned the five-year contract extensions that were announced the day of the home opener against the Seattle Kraken — and they did so while holding themselves and the organization to the highest possible standard. At the heart of this stunningly quick rebuild are a couple of nice guys who are as competent as they are, well, nice.
When HuGo took over, the Canadiens were a tarnished brand. They had disrespected players, made embarrassing draft picks, wallowed in the aftermath of deals like the Ryan McDonagh for Scott Gomez trade because no one bothered to take a hard look at Gomez’s character.
Most of the attention recently has been on the players added to the roster — but the most revealing indication of the way Hughes operates as GM was his treatment of Jeff Petry.
Petry, initially dealt to Pittsburgh with Ryan Poehling in July 2022 for Mike Matheson and a fourth-rounder, was still hoping to get closer to his home in Detroit when, on Aug. 6, 2023, he was traded back to Montreal as part of the three-team deal that saw Erik Karlsson go from the San Jose Sharks to Pittsburgh.
Nine days later, Petry was traded again, this time from Montreal to Detroit for Gustav Lindstrom and a fourth-round pick in 2025. The Canadiens received a solid prospect in Lindstrom while getting Petry back to Detroit, where his father, Dan Petry, pitched 10 seasons for the Tigers.
“I’m a believer in general … that you try to do the right thing,” Hughes said at the time. “I called Jeff. … They have four young boys, and they were about to start school in two weeks, so I gave him my word. I said, ‘Listen, we saw an opportunity here to facilitate the trade between Pittsburgh and San Jose and to help ourselves, but we’re mindful that you’ve got a family and your own career and Montreal is probably not the place you’re expecting to play.’
“I promised him that we’d work expeditiously to get him moved and that we wouldn’t drag this out trying to maximize every last piece of value in the trade.”
These things get noticed. When Hughes and Gorton took over, Montreal meant high taxes, bad weather, potholes, language politics, fiercely critical media and a fan base that routinely booed the likes of Larry Robinson.
Under Pierre Gauthier, the Canadiens had hauled the much-loved Mike Cammalleri off the ice in Boston mid-game and traded him for daring to criticize the team atmosphere the previous day.
These things get noticed too.
Even Gorton and Hughes can’t fix it all. They can’t change the tax rate, but they can point out that players who spend eight or nine months a year in this city also benefit handsomely from the exchange rate. They can’t improve the weather, but they can provide top-flight coaching from Martin St. Louis and an unparalleled atmosphere in the room and in the building.
The result of the nice guy approach is clear. The fan base is more supportive of the entire organization than any I have seen in more than 50 years following this team. An open approach with the media has done far more to burnish the club’s image than the paranoid “Us vs. Them” atmosphere that prevailed from the day Bob Gainey took over until Marc Bergevin was fired.
Make no mistake: if HuGo had swapped Ryan McDonagh for Scott Gomez or drafted Alex Galchenyuk with the third overall pick, fans would still be out with pitchforks and torches — being a good guy carries only so much weight.
But the transaction record has been sharper than a Cole Caufield snap shot, even as Hughes, Gorton and St. Louis treat people with respect. That applies to players, fans, media and employees. The dividends are in the exciting team we see on the ice.
As for whether this management team would consider pursuing Carter Hart? Not on a cold day in Vegas.
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