The Habs made it known that they were open to being a third-party broker to facilitate a trade and they did just that, picking up a 2024 fifth-round pick as part of a three-team trade that sent Nick Bonino to Pittsburgh.
The trade breaks down as follows:
• San Jose trades Bonino and their 2024 fifth-round draft pick to Montreal in exchange for the rights to Arvid Henrikson.
• San Jose trades defenseman Tony Sund to Pittsburgh in exchange for Pittsburgh’s conditional 2024 fifth-round draft selection and Pittsburgh’s 2023 seventh-round draft selection. The conditional 2024 fifth-round selection will become a 2024 fourth-round selection if Pittsburgh advances to the 2023 Eastern Conference Final.
• Montreal trades Bonino to Pittsburgh in exchange for Sund and will retain 50% of Bonino’s salary.
In the end, the portion that’s relevant to the Habs is that they get San Jose’s 2024 fifth-round pick and Sund for Henrikson while retaining half of Bonino’s $2.05 million contract. It’s the second retained contract slot for the Canadiens with Evgenii Dadonov being the other one. Montreal has one slot remaining.
As for the other pieces involved, Henrikson was a seventh-round pick all the way back in 2016 that remained property of the team since he was still playing in college. He ranked dead last in our prospect rankings for the last several seasons. Sund, meanwhile, is a 27-year-old defenceman playing in Sweden on the same team as prospect Adam Engstrom. He’ll become an unrestricted free agent in July and isn’t going to be part of the plans.