{"id":452292,"date":"2026-02-09T17:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452292\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:07:16","slug":"canadiens-in-the-market-for-first-line-winger-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452292\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens In The Market For First-Line Winger \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Canadiens have begun to softly position themselves in the market for a right-winger to complement\u00a0Cole Caufield<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Nick Suzuki<\/a>\u00a0on the top line ahead of the trade deadline, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period said on Daily Faceoff\u2019s \u201cThe Sheet with Jeff Marek\u201d podcast<\/a> last Friday. Pagnotta speculatively tied them to the Blues\u2019\u00a0Jordan Kyrou<\/a>, who the Habs were more firmly linked to last offseason, but didn\u2019t have any other specific targets to offer.<\/p>\n

For the past several seasons, the second-line center slot has been viewed as both a long-term and short-term position of need for Montreal as it transitioned from rebuilder to playoff contender. As Pagnotta mentioned, Oliver Kapanen<\/a>\u2018s emergence this season has largely quieted that noise. The 22-year-old rookie is beginning to flourish between fellow youngsters Ivan Demidov<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a>, on pace for 26 goals and 45 points. They\u2019ll want more scoring out of him long-term, but it\u2019s a promising first step for a second-round pick still at the midway point of his development curve.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsky had spent his first couple of seasons up with Caufield and Suzuki. Moving him down the depth chart to give Montreal a formidable secondary scoring line hasn\u2019t affected his production much and has been a net positive for the club this season, but they\u2019ve yet to find a stable solution to replace him on the top unit.<\/p>\n

Since Slafkovsky\u2019s early-season \u201cdemotion,\u201d it\u2019s largely been an alternating mix of\u00a0Zachary Bolduc<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Alexandre Texier<\/a>\u00a0riding shotgun on the right side. Together, they\u2019ve averaged under half a point per game this season. They haven\u2019t been a huge drag on the line\u2019s possession impacts \u2013 in fact, they\u2019ve controlled 61.6% of expected goals when Texier\u2019s the third man \u2013 but it\u2019s not the type of production they need from a top-line winger if they have serious aspirations of cutting through a crowded Eastern Conference field in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

If Kyrou is amenable to a move, it could be a fit. He\u2019s hit the 70-point mark three times in the last five years. A down year in 2025-26 means his $8.125MM cap hit through 2030-31 might be tough to swallow at first glance, and he has to waive his no-trade clause to facilitate it. There\u2019s also the question of how the Habs would facilitate such a deal with just $1.5MM in projected cap space on deadline day. Moving out pending UFA\u00a0Patrik Laine<\/a> and his bloated $8.7MM cap hit is the clear path forward, but whether St. Louis would be open to taking it back in the deal or if they\u2019d have to shed him in a separate transaction remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Montreal was tied<\/a> to the Flames\u2019\u00a0Blake Coleman<\/a>\u00a0last month. He would be a slightly longer-term solution as he\u2019s signed through 2026-27. A respected all-around versatile winger, his offensive ceiling isn\u2019t as tantalizing as other options, though. He\u2019s only hit 50 points once in his career. Giving him premier minutes would obviously give him a better shot at being productive, though, and it would allow the Habs to throw out a more formidable bottom-six group as a result.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s also the option of not making any move at all. They still have some tantalizing names on the come-up, like 2025 second-rounder Alexander Zharovsky<\/a>, a 6\u20191\u2033 right winger who\u2019s broken out for 36 points in 44 KHL games this season with a couple of weeks still to go before his 19th birthday. The hold-pat outcome is something Pagnotta relays general manager Kent Hughes remains comfortable with as the Habs carry a comfortable seven-point cushion on a playoff spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canadiens have begun to softly position themselves in the market for a right-winger to complement\u00a0Cole Caufield\u00a0and\u00a0Nick Suzuki\u00a0on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5103],"tags":[8157,265,5,1479,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-452292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-blake-coleman","9":"tag-canadiens","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-jordan-kyrou","12":"tag-montreal","13":"tag-montreal-canadiens","14":"tag-montrealcanadiens","15":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116041773697720200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}