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The Montreal Canadiens have been linked to Anaheim Ducks‘ forward Trevor Zegras for a while. Insider Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic last reported on that interest on June 4 writing from the NHL combine.
“I believe Anaheim and Montreal have re-connected on Zegras,” LeBrun wrote. “However, I’m not convinced that’s a path the Habs will ultimately pursue aggressively.”
LeBrun didn’t expand on what trading for Zegras could cost the Habs, but Arpon Basu of BPM Sports disclosed the Ducks’ demands on June 5. His revelation aligns with LeBrun’s feelings about Montreal’s unwillingness to pay too much.
“I think the Ducks would ask for a pretty significant piece,” Basu said on June 5, as translated by Christopher Brown of Dose.ca. “It would start with a David Reinbacher, a package around Kaiden Guhle. It’s not ridiculous. Trevor Zegras is an excellent National League player.”
Zegras has played 211 NHL games over four seasons racking up 154 points (55 goals, 99 assists). The forward was limited to 31 games in 2024 (ankle injury) scoring 15 points.
Reinbacher and Guhle are two of the most prominent prospects in the Canadiens organization. The Habs drafted them with the No. 5 (2023) and the No. 16 (2020) picks respectively.
Trade Option No. 1: Kaiden Guhle
Kaiden Guhle joined the Habs as the No. 16 pick in the 2020 draft. It took him a few years to debut in the NHL, but he finally did so in the 2022-23 season. Guhle played 44 games and scored 18 points.
The prospect averaged 20:31 minutes per game as a rookie. He played 70 games in 2024 scoring 22 points (6 goals, 16 assists) and averaging 20:51 TOI.
Over 114 NHL games, Guhle has tallied 10 goals and 40 points. He’s appeared in the 15th-most games among players drafted in 2020.
Corey Pronman of The Athletic revisited his scouting report of Guhle in November 2022.
“I thought Guhle was just a third-pair defenseman in the NHL but it’s clear he has the ability and competitiveness to be a good top-four guy for a long time,” Pronman wrote.
Trade Option No. 2: David Reinbacher
The Canadiens spent their first-round pick in the 2023 draft on David Reinbacher, selecting him with the No. 5 pick.
After drafting defensemen back-to-back in 2020 and 2021, fans expected the Canadiens to pick a forward. That’s what the Habs did in 2022 drafting Juraj Slafkovsky with the No. 1 pick.
“General manager Kent Hughes picked him fifth overall in last year’s draft, to the shock of many,” Basu said.
Habs’ GM Kent Hughes decided to add a right-shot defenseman to the organization. He reasoned his decision on the lack of such a player in the Canadiens farm, also considering Reinbacher the best player available at the moment.
“There were different options of what we could have done from a trade perspective. At the end of the day, our scouts believe that this was a hockey player that was going to play for us for an awfully long time,” said Hughes, via The Hockey News’ Chris Galanapoulos and Rick Stephens. “We weren’t going to be able to find a trade that would be as valuable as David (Reinbacher) at five.”
Reinbacher spent much of the 2024 season in Switzerland with Kloten HC. He moved to the Laval Rocket once his Swiss team was eliminated from contention.
The defenseman scored 5 points in 11 games with the Rocket, and he’s expected in the NHL soon. Pronman considered Reinbacher “a true premium defense prospect” when analyzing the Habs’ pick on June 2023.
“In Reinbacher the Canadiens get a true premium defense prospect, a player with top pair potential and a chance to become a star if he really hits,” Pronman wrote on June 26, 2023.
Canadiens GM Wants To Add Offensive Talent
Montreal Canadiens General Manager Kent Hughes expressed his determination to bolster the team’s roster on the offensive front this offseason.
In an interview with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic on June 3, Hughes said he will explore options in the upcoming draft and free agency.
“I think so. If we can get a player, if we can trade up in the draft, we have to look at any way that we can improve this team,” Hughes said. “We won’t be limited to something that has to make us better next season. But if it does, call that icing on the cake.”
Hughes has not ruled out trading the Canadiens’ No. 5 pick in the 2024 draft for an established player, although that might depend on who’s available by the time Montreal steps to the podium.
“I suspect it’s more an in-the-moment (decision) this year,” Hughes said.
Hughes seems determined to make moves and improve the Canadiens roster. That said, moving Guhle or Reinbacher might be too big a step for him to make.
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