The Montreal Canadiens traded goalie Jaroslav Halak to the St. Louis Blues for a pair of decent prospects in Lars Eller and Ian Schultz.
Worst blockbuster ever.
Montreal did the right thing in trading Halak who will be a restricted free agent on July 1 because Halak’s value is at its highest right now. Halak is a streaky goaltender who got hot at the right time. Everyone sees how well he did for a month and his value goes way up.
What they don’t remember is how he has gotten hot like that before only to go on equally bad cold stretches. Additionally, Montreal’s defense deserves a lot of credit for making him look good.
Halak is also going to get a bundle of money after playing his best at the most profitable time. Halak will be an over-paid goaltender for St Louis roughly the same caliber as their previous goaltender Chris Mason who also has a penchant for playing brilliantly for short stretches.
The two players coming to the Montreal Canadiens are C Lars Eller and LW Ian Schultz.
Lars Eller is the better prospect of the two. Eller has decent size, which is something Montreal desperately needs at forward, and a decent scoring touch, but he is a better playmaker and looks to be a solid two-way second line center.
Ian Schultz projects to be either a second or third line winger. He plays a very physical game and could become a power forward if he develops a bit of a scoring touch.
While there is nothing wrong with what the Canadiens got from the St. Louis Blues, you have to think that if they’d signed Halak before trading him, they could have got a whole lot more and that’s why this trade is so bad. They could have done better.
The other problem that Montreal has is the goaltender that they kept. Carey Price has a ton of potential, but he’s too fragile to play in Montreal where the fans compare every goaltender to Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden. The best thing for Price would be to get traded to some non-hockey town, preferably without any night-life, where he can quietly salvage his career.
Eller might play next season for the Canadiens, but he is still a few years from making any impact.
For the Blues this is a sideways move because they aren’t going to win more games with the hot and cold Halak. But watch for them to win in bunches with Halak in net and bet accordingly.
St Louis plays in the toughest division in hockey. As a result, they are going to have a hard time making the playoffs and are +5000 in odds to win the Stanley Cup.
Montreal has it much easier. They are +2200 to win the Stanley Cup despite trading away their playoff hero.
