Confirmed with Link: Alexandre Carrier acquired from the Predators in exchange for Justin Barron

[Andy]

Do you think Hughes was impatient with Barron? You insistently argued for patience with Barron this year.

Barron was acquired almost three years ago. He's playing on a team with a deep d prospect pool.

I don't think it's a question of patience, but a question of numbers. He keeps getting passed on the depth chart by other players and needs to clear waivers to be sent to the ahl.

I would say the habs have been very patient with Barron. They've let him make his mistakes and he's been rotating in and out of the line up as most d-man who arent stars and have played less than 200 games do.

At no point did I feel they were unjust to him. The writing is on the wall. He hasn't been better than Struble, Guhle, Arber, Hutson. Mailloux and Reinbacher are knocking on the door and Justin has to pass waivers.

When Barron played 5 games with the habs in 2022 none of Guhle, Struble, Arber, Hutson were playing nhl (obviously). Since then, they have all passed him on the depth chart.

 

[rahad]

Watch Barron becoming #1 RD now

Yeah #1 RD in Europe league for sure!

 

[themilosh]

This sucks! I was still bullish on Justin Barron. I wish him all the best, I’m sure he will figure it out somewhere down the line and have a respectable career.

Carrier becomes our new stop gap until RB mailloux wake up.. two years

 

[Sorinth]

I disagree 100%.
While I agree it was obvious the habs would only be able to keep a maximum of 8 defenseman in the NHL but instead of letting their play during camp+ pre season decide if their defenseman warranted to stay in the NHL, the habs decided to decimate their depth so they can give opportunity to their younger defenseman. To me this is/was always dumb, a 4th round pick for Kovacevic is not good enough of an asset to move him before training camp. If a team offered a 1st, sure but a mid round pick? The worst case scenario is that Kovacevic stink at camp and you demote him to the AHL or lose him on waiver and miss out on a mid pick. No big deal considering his cap hit. The issue was, if Mailloux, Reinbacher, Barron were not ready (which we know happened) or showed the talent to stay with the big club at least you would still have Kovacevic as a depth defenseman. It would also mean a battle for a roster spot at camp. Handing out NHL roster spot to rookie prior to the camp is not the way professional sport should be. It's a competitive sport, you need depth and you want them to show you they are ready by their play on the ice. Now guess what, we have acquired a depth defenseman in Carrier with a significant cap hit and terms. If he stink, you are stuck with him, demoting him to the AHL is not an option.

Shouldn't their play last season be a more important factor then what they would hypothetically do in camp/pre-season? For example Struble earned his spot last year playing actual NHL games, shouldn't that be valued when making decisions? It's not like he was just handed a spot, he was outplaying guys like Kovacevik and Harris.

I mean the only actual rookie who was arguably handed a spot was Hutson, and he also earned his spot in TC anyways.

 

[Runner77]

While also cementing the relationship with Bogdan, who seems a bit miffed at the relative neglect.

I thought they wouldn’t be able to meet with Bogdan given that he’d be too far from them for the short time they are there.

 

[AHShadow]

I think it's fair to say that Hughes lost the Lehkonen trade, but the trade itself at the time seemed like a good bet given that Barron still had a lot of upside as a top 4D.

Marty didn't seem to trust Barron as much and he was likely to be a bottom pair D with Mailloux and Reinbacher projecting to play higher in the lineup.

Think Carrier will bring more stability to our blueline and also enables Savard to get shipped prior to the trade deadline.

 

[StCaufield]

People gotta understand..

Hughes didn't trade the Lehky you're seeing in Colorado (tho some of us DID think Lehk was more than a 4th liner)
He traded what Bergevin and Julien/Ducharme did to Lehkonen by turning him into a bottom 6er for us
That's NOT Kent Hughes fault...
That's the player he ended up having to trade BECAUSE Bergevin gave all our money away to players we are STILL currently trying to get rid of..
And we , at that specific exact time, could not afford to give a deserved pay raise to a player that hadn't reached his ceiling *with us*, and tried to bring in a RD, which was always 'taking a stab' , it didn't work, it happens

Obviously would of loved to have kept Lehk, but I'm glad he made something out of himself over there, even got a Cup

Right now we have Hage and Carrier, and let's see where that can take us

Lehky is the same except he plays with some of the best players in the world

 

[Habs 4 Life]

KH is making trades at 5am in Russia!! He must be really bored!!

 

[salbutera]

People gotta understand..

Hughes didn't trade the Lehky you're seeing in Colorado (tho some of us DID think Lehk was more than a 4th liner)
He traded what Bergevin and Julien/Ducharme did to Lehkonen by turning him into a bottom 6er for us
That's NOT Kent Hughes fault...
That's the player he ended up having to trade BECAUSE Bergevin gave all our money away to players we are STILL currently trying to get rid of..
And we , at that specific exact time, could not afford to give a deserved pay raise to a player that hadn't reached his ceiling *with us*, and tried to bring in a RD, which was always 'taking a stab' , it didn't work, it happens

Obviously would of loved to have kept Lehk, but I'm glad he made something out of himself over there, even got a Cup

Right now we have Hage and Carrier, and let's see where that can take us

Of course he is, do people forget how many important goals he scored durin the run to the Cup finals. Even as a rookie he was the best Habs playoff performer (vs NYR).

What he has w Avs that he didn’t w Habs is obviously the triumvirate of MacKinnon, Rantannen & Makar - but make no doubt he plays the same Lekhonen game

 

[Andrei79]

Barron was acquired almost three years ago. He's playing on a team with a deep d prospect pool.

I don't think it's a question of patience, but a question of numbers. He keeps getting passed on the depth chart by other players and needs to clear waivers to be sent to the ahl.

I would say the habs have been very patient with Barron. They've let him make his mistakes and he's been rotating in and out of the line up as most d-man who arent stars and have played less than 200 games do.

At no point did I feel they were unjust to him. The writing is on the wall. He hasn't been better than Struble, Guhle, Arber, Hutson. Mailloux and Reinbacher are knocking on the door and Justin has to pass waivers.

When Barron played 5 games with the habs in 2022 none of Guhle, Struble, Arber, Hutson were playing nhl (obviously). Since then, they have all passed him on the depth chart.

I'm wondering if acquiring multiple potential puck movers wasn't a deliberate strategy. They're likely the hardest type of defenseman to acquire. Proof is you can get a Jensen, Kovacevic or Carrier for almost nothing. If you acquire or draft 3-4 puck movers and even 1-2 hit, then it's a win, it doesn't really matter at that point if it's Hutson, Mailloux or Barron (or even Matheson, though we know it isn't the case), as long as 1-2 hit.

 

[morhilane]

Interesting that few people are talking about Trotz trying to acquire Barron last year (according to himself in the Preds media scrum over the trade today) and it seems Preds have been high on Barron for a while.

They probably think they can fix him.

 

[salbutera]

KH is making trades at 5am in Russia!! He must be really bored!!

Trade was probably done a week ago, waiting on Preds Dr to clear Carrier from IR

 

[417]

KH is making trades at 5am in Russia!! He must be really bored!!

Apparently it's Gorton who called Carrier to inform him.

Maybe Jeff Gorton was waiting for Hughes to leave the country to make trades lol

 

[Runner77]

Carrier becomes our new stop gap until RB mailloux wake up.. two years

That’s exactly what this deal’s about.

Plus, it resolves the issue of Barron stagnating and wasting an NHL roster spot as he was no longer waiver exempt.

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/12/19/pratiquement-aucune-communication-avec-le-ch-confie-konyushkov

I know. Saw it on Twitter. Hence my post.

 

[Soundgarden]

Why did we not just pick up Fabbro for free? How does Carrier compare?

Fabbro is better than Carrier. Him being on waivers was mind boggling.

 

[the]

KH is making trades at 5am in Russia!! He must be really bored!!

Or maybe he was drunk on Stolichnaya and decided to make a trade just to show the Rangers that he can make trades also.

 

[le_sean]

Interesting that few people are talking about Trotz trying to acquire Barron last year (according to himself in the Preds media scrum over the trade today) and it seems Preds have been high on Barron for a while.

They probably think they can fix him.

Trotz is also proving that he’s absolute ass as a GM compared to as a coach

 

[pth2]

Trade was probably done a week ago, waiting on Preds Dr to clear Carrier from IR

I'm thinking either Montreal or Nashville was also involved in talks with NYR or Kraken, and once Kakko got moved, there was a domino effect. It can't be a coincidence that 3 of the 4 players moved that same day were RD.

 

[The Real Timo]

Interesting that few people are talking about Trotz trying to acquire Barron last year (according to himself in the Preds media scrum over the trade today) and it seems Preds have been high on Barron for a while.

They probably think they can fix him.

How high? Sounds like we also should have gotten their 1st... unconditional.

 

[417]

Trotz is also proving that he’s absolute ass as a GM compared to as a coach

Like old flabby ass cheeks ass too.

 

[pth2]

People gotta understand..

Hughes didn't trade the Lehky you're seeing in Colorado (tho some of us DID think Lehk was more than a 4th liner)
He traded what Bergevin and Julien/Ducharme did to Lehkonen by turning him into a bottom 6er for us
That's NOT Kent Hughes fault...
That's the player he ended up having to trade BECAUSE Bergevin gave all our money away to players we are STILL currently trying to get rid of..
And we , at that specific exact time, could not afford to give a deserved pay raise to a player that hadn't reached his ceiling *with us*, and tried to bring in a RD, which was always 'taking a stab' , it didn't work, it happens

Obviously would of loved to have kept Lehk, but I'm glad he made something out of himself over there, even got a Cup

Right now we have Hage and Carrier, and let's see where that can take us

That's a good point, we can claim Lehkonen had more potential and some of us saw it, but he hadn't delivered yet, and could Montreal afford another 4.5M winger who put up mediocre numbers ? Along with Armia, Anderson and Gallagher, our wing positions would be saturated with highly paid vets while rebuilding.

I think for Laine it comes down to pricing. He doesn't drive the play and isn't particularly good at ES/defensively. He's not a guy you pay 11+ mil to. But he is definitely one of those "missing piece" type of players.

I'm waiting to see how the rest of his game rounds out, right now he's in Gurianov territory: a 1-trick pony with a great shot and a mediocre defensive game. The meltdown game was largely on him, as he missed coverage of a guy in front of the net on a the 4-2 goal that led to the team breakdown.

 

[Natey]

We got our Kovacevic!

Ugh, this still makes me mad.

On that note, I love this trade. Barron was not it for me. I hated the Lehkonen trade from Day #1. Carrier can help us for years.

 

[Habs 4 Life]

Or maybe he was drunk on Stolichnaya and decided to make a trade just to show the Rangers that he can make trades also.

I would bet more him doing blow with Kuznetsov to be honest

 

[Habs]

I know, hindsight is 20/20, it is fun though to re-read the first reactions to a trade sometimes...

Confirmed with Link: - Artturi Lehkonen (50% Retained) Traded to Colorado for a 2024 2nd Round Pick & Justin Barron

forums.hfboards.com

Lots of us called it a shit trade, Sakic is too smart.