Hughes has a big price on Evans (Friedman said 2nd)
Says teams are interested in Armia
Says Montreal is looking for an impact player/hockey trade. Gives notion to keep an eye on them. Adds it may not happen (duh), but they're interested in bigger hockey trades if they can get a match
Habs could make a hockey trade where they trade Evans -- and Armia, maybe - plus a prospect and a draft pick for a solution either at C (for the 2C position long term) or at D (for the top-4 RHD that is missing).
Of course, there needs to be a team in a situation to take on the assets which Hughes is willing to give up for one of these solutions.
As long as it isn't for a project, I believe that we are in a position in this rebuild to exchange our first round pick for a genuine impact player, either on D, or at C. It's less sexy on D, but, still, it could be even more crucial to building an eventual Cup winner.
Let's say it takes Montreal's 1st round pick (top-5 protected in case that we win the lottery -- payment would become CAL 1st rounder and MON 2026 1st rounder unprotected fin the pick ends up top-5), Mailloux, Evans and Matheson (at half price) for Dobson (I know, way too much, but still), we would likely have solved our needs at D for the long run without touching our core up front:
Guhle - Dobson
Hutson - Reinbacher
Xhekaj - Engstrom
Even if Guhle became an injury fiasco along the way, I'm pretty confident that Engstrom could step in alongside Dobson to make a solid D pairing and that a RHD like Konyushkov could eventually (2 years) come over to North America to play on a third pairing with Xhekaj
Hughes would likely, especially if we ended up with a top-5 pick at this year's draft and would be putting up our unprotected 1st round pick next year, sign a UFA solution at 2C, either short term or medium to long term, in order to ensure greater odds of making the playoffs next season:
Caufield - Suzuki - Dach
Slafkovsky - Bennett/Duchene (just examples) - Demidov
Heineman - Beck - Laine
Anderson - F. Xhekaj - Gallagher
Guhle - Dobson
Hutson - Reinbacher
Xhekaj - Engstrom
Montembeault
Dobes/Primeau
Pretty sure that this roster has a pretty good chance of making the playoffs. The key will be how the Gs play, IMO, and how much trust the other players have in them so they can concentrate on their jobs.