Both the Montreal Canadiens and Utah Hockey Club have been hit hard by injuries early on in the 2024-25 NHL season, and the general managers of both cross-conference clubs are not standing pat.
Kent Hughes and Bill Armstrong are each exploring the trade market, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun confirmed in the latest episode of Early Trading on Thursday. Utah’s blue line has been decimated by injury, with Sean Durzi and John Marino both expected to be sidelined for multiple months.
“[That’s] very hurtful to what Utah’s trying to do here. …If this was the old Arizona days, they’d probably say ‘Eh, we’re rebuilding, if we lose we lose, we’ll probably get a higher draft pick.’ That’s not the mindset with the Utah Hockey Club. New market, new owner, they want to be way more competitive this year,” reported LeBrun.
The hockey insider continued: “And so because of that, there’s some added pressure this year to see how they’ll cope with these injuries. The early decision, from what we’re told by the Utah front office and general manager Bill Armstrong, is that they’re going to try to cope from within, they have internal options. They’ve already made a call-up and basically try to survive these injuries.”
Montreal has lost both offseason acquisition Patrik Laine and top prospect David Reinbacher long-term, while Kayden Guhle and Juraj Slafkovsky are battling injuries of their own. The Canadiens are also off to a tough start, currently sitting 2-4-1 and last place in the Atlantic Division.
“What I’m being told, after talking to teams around the league, is that general manager Kent Hughes has started to call around, doing his due diligence, at least getting a sense of what, potentially, is out there because I think the Canadiens would be open to making a move here that would help sort of shake up the makeup a bit here, and help this team win some games,” LeBrun said.
“The reality though is there is almost no trades at this time of year – we know that in a cap system. I don’t think there’s anything imminent for Montreal, but I think it’s noteworthy that the Habs aren’t just sitting there and saying, ‘Oh well, we’re off to a slow start, that’s life.’ No, it has fuelled Kent Hughes to maybe make more calls than he might have this early in the season.”
Utah HC has already called the Columbus Blue Jackets about defenseman Ivan Provorov, says LeBrun.
Utah HC has inquired about Ivan Provorov
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Although Provorov would be a solid injection to the blue line in Utah, Jackets GM Don Waddell probably isn’t ready to trade the Russian this early.
“One of the players I’m told [Armstrong has] checked on is Ivan Provorov, the pending UFA defenceman from the Columbus Blue Jackets and Provorov is going to be in high demand closer to March 7’s trade deadline,” explained LeBrun.
“My sense is that the Blue Jackets may not be ready at this point to deal him. They want to leave this roster alone for now, let this team have a chance, let them fight it out this year, and I don’t think they want to take away from the roster too early in the season.”
It will be interesting to see if either the Canadiens or Utah Hockey Club swing a trade or two as the injuries continue to pile up for the respective clubs.