Report card grades for all 31 NHL teams at the trade deadline

Montreal Canadiens: B-

The Montreal Canadiens, despite all the rumors, ended up mainly holding steady at the deadline. There were rumors of Max Pacioretty being traded and Alex Galchenyuk being shopped around. Montreal did the right thing and held on to its bigger pieces. When things start to go wrong in Montreal, people start to panic and make the wrong decisions. Pacioretty is not the root of the problems in Montreal, and scapegoating him would not have been the right move.

Instead, the Canadiens made a series of sensible moves that will better them in the long term. Montreal decided to move on from Jakub Jerabek for a fifth-round draft pick from Washington. Then Montreal made its big trade of the deadline when it moved Tomas Plekanec and Kyle Baun to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In return, the Canadiens received Kerby Rychel, Rinat Valiev and a 2018 second-round pick. This was a good package for Montreal for a lower-line center. Montreal then picked up a 2018 fourth-round pick for depth defenseman Joe Morrow. To close out Montreal’s day, the team acquired defenseman Mike Reilly from the Minnesota Wild in return for a 2019 fifth-round draft pick. Reilly is a good young defenseman who needs to work on cleaning up his game and footwork to become an NHL regular.

Marc Bergevin has a very stressful job in Montreal. Instead of forcing a trade to shake up the team, he did the right thing by making smaller moves that will help the team better in the long run. His patience and smart dealmaking earned Montreal a B-.