The Habs made a splash on the trade front on Monday, announcing the acquisition of winger Patrik Laine and a 2026 second-round pick from Columbus in exchange for defenceman Jordan Harris.
Laine has been in trade speculation for several weeks now after exiting the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program last month. Despite Columbus having a new coach and GM, the 26-year-old made it known that his trade request still stood. Reports thereafter suggested that the market was tepid for Laine’s services.
There are a couple of reasons for that. For starters, Laine carries a cap charge of $8.7 million through 2025-26; no salary retention was involved in the return. That price tag made it difficult for the Blue Jackets to build a strong market as few teams could afford him at the full rate.
The second issue is that Laine is coming off a down year. Before entering the assistance program, he was limited to just 18 games due to a shoulder injury where he had six goals and three assists. They briefly dabbled with deploying Laine at centre before moving him back to the wing and he never got going before the injury. The end result was his ATOI dropping by nearly four minutes a game under head coach Pascal Vincent (now Laval’s bench boss) to just 15:13 per contest.
That said, Laine’s track record is quite appealing. He has reached the 20-goal mark six times in his eight-year career, his best effort coming in his sophomore year in 2017-18 with Winnipeg. He also had 108 points in 111 games between 2021-22 and 2022-23 so there is a recent level of success as well. The Canadiens are in dire need of secondary scoring beyond their top line and Laine should certainly help on that front. He, coupled with the return of Kirby Dach, could make for an intriguing second line in the fall.
As for Harris, the 24-year-old was a third-round pick by the Canadiens back in 2018, going 71st overall. He turned pro in 2022 after college and has been a full-fledged regular on Montreal’s back end since, albeit in a lower-end role. Harris played in 56 games last season, picking up 14 points and 86 blocked shots in 17:28 per night. He’s entering the final year of his contract with a $1.4 million cap charge.
However, defensive depth on the left side is something that the Habs had a surplus of. Even after this swap, Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jayden Struble, and Lane Hutson remain in the mix. While Guhle could shift to his off-side, Montreal still has some sufficient depth at this spot.
With this move, the Habs sit around $2.2 million above the salary cap, per PuckPedia. While they have ample potential for LTIR with Carey Price (and Rafael Harvey-Pinard to start the season), management has acknowledged in the past that staying below the LTIR threshold would be ideal. That’s harder to do now but if Laine can rebound to his old form, it will be well worth it to add some quality offence to the roster.