Canadiens stand pat at deadline, GM could revisit ‘significant deal’ in off-season

ANAHEIM — 
The Montreal Canadiens didn’t make a move at the NHL trade deadline, but may have laid the groundwork for a major transaction this summer.

General manager Kent Hughes said he worked the phones until the final minutes Friday on a “significant deal” that fell through but could be pursued again in the off-season.

“Our objective was always to find trades that advance our main objective, which is to build a team that can win over the long term,” Hughes told reporters in Anaheim, Calif., hours before the Canadiens played the Ducks. “We spent a lot of time on one particular file. It went down to the last minute, it wasn’t completed.

“But that doesn’t prevent us from revisiting it in the summer.”

The Canadiens enter Friday’s action with the NHL’s eighth-best record at 33-18-9, holding the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and within reach of home-ice advantage in the playoffs.

But even with a wealth of prospects and draft picks available to trade, Hughes held to his long-standing approach that he will not mortgage the future for short-term gain as the Canadiens look to build a sustainable winner.

“I don’t want to leave the impression to our fan base that we’re just going to keep drafting and drafting and drafting. We’re going to do what we need to do to keep moving the needle forward,” he said. “But by the same token, we’re not going to transact for the sake of transacting so that everybody’s happy in the moment, and then next year comes around and we are all scratching our heads as to why we did it.”

The Canadiens are on track to make the playoffs for the second consecutive season following a rebuild, but the up-and-coming team — led by captain Nick Suzuki, winger Cole Caufield and defenceman Lane Hutson — is still working toward reaching contender status.

Hughes also pointed out that although the Canadiens stayed quiet Friday, they’ve made moves to improve the team over the last several months. Those include trades for defenceman Noah Dobson and forward Zachary Bolduc last July, and the addition of veteran centre Phillip Danault from the Los Angeles Kings in December.

Suzuki recently told reporters he was happy with the group as constructed heading into the deadline.

“They’re not ignoring the fact that we made significant moves since the end of last season to improve our team,” Hughes said. “We traded a second-round pick for Phil Danault. If there was another deal that required that type of return that we thought moved the needle for us, we would have done that, too.

“But I think part of the message to the group is, we like these players, we’ve got a lot of good hockey players, we’ve got good hockey players that aren’t playing games right now for our team. For us to add to that log jam, we wanted to know that it really was meaningful enough for us to do it.”

Hughes acknowledged the high prices in a trade market that yielded first-round draft picks for depth players, but said that wouldn’t have prevented him from making a move.

Rumours also swirled around whether the Canadiens would trade winger Patrik Laine and his US$8.7-million contract set to expire at the end of the season.

Laine hasn’t played since Oct. 16 after undergoing core muscle surgery with a three-to-four month recovery timeline. The Finnish forward returned to practice in mid-January but missed additional time after the Olympic break with a lower-body injury, the Canadiens said. He has since resumed practising without a non-contact jersey, yet still hasn’t been activated.

Hughes rejected the idea that Laine’s impending return — or lack thereof — is a distraction.

“Patrik is part of the team, like all of our other players, and he’s not a distraction. He hasn’t been up to now,” Hughes said. “He’s still available to the team and (it’s) the coach’s decisions as to who will play from one game to the next.”

A former 40-goal scorer, Laine arrived in Montreal via trade from the Columbus Blue Jackets in August 2024 after pondering retirement following a string of injuries and time in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program.

The sharpshooting 27-year-old winger said he has rediscovered his love for the game with the Canadiens, helping the team reach the playoffs last season while scoring at a torrid rate on the power play.

Still, Laine has struggled at five-on-five during his Montreal tenure, prompting coach Martin St. Louis to move him around the lineup and at times bench the former star forward.

Hughes admitted the Canadiens did work with Laine’s agent to “find a solution for him” at the deadline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2026.

The Canadian Press