{"id":763503,"date":"2026-06-27T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/763503\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T10:16:08","slug":"canadiens-still-focused-on-trade-market-after-using-2026-first-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/763503\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens still focused on trade market after using 2026 first-round pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

BROSSARD, Que. \u2014 On Friday night, the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> traded for a six-foot-three Russian right winger.<\/p>\n

It just wasn\u2019t the one everyone was speculating about.<\/p>\n

No, Kirill Marchenko remains in Columbus, where Blue Jackets president of hockey operations and general manager Don Waddell was busy telling reporters that it was \u201cnews to him\u201d that Marchenko\u2019s team had notified ESPN and NHL Network analyst Kevin Weekes in the middle of the first round of the NHL Draft that the player wasn\u2019t interested in extending his contract with them beyond its current term.<\/p>\n

Marchenko\u2019s first opportunity to do so comes July 1, with the 25-year-old\u2019s deal (worth $3.85 million per season) set to expire in one year and leave him as a restricted free agent. The report he would not take advantage of it did little to quell speculation he could be traded.<\/p>\n

Rumours were rampant he could move to the Canadiens heading into the first round of the draft, and league sources confirmed to Sportsnet on Friday afternoon the team had taken \u201ca hard run at Marchenko\u201d and \u201cwas hot after him.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the deal the Canadiens ultimately consummated during Round 1 was the one general manager Kent Hughes swung for Gleb Pugachyov \u2014 a pugnacious power forward taken 26th\u00a0overall after Pick 28 and a 2027 third-rounder were shipped to the Vegas Golden Knights to put the Canadiens in that position at the draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear we had classed him higher than where we were going to pick,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cWe tried to move up several times tonight, and we were able to move up two spots and still get the player we wanted. He\u2019s definitely a player with a big frame, but he also really plays a very robust style, and he\u2019s got really strong hockey sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GM qualified Pugachyov as \u201cmature.\u201d He told Sportsnet he\u2019s close to NHL-ready and intimated to reporters thereafter that there could be a mechanism in his current KHL contract that enables him to come to Montreal before it\u2019s set to expire in two years.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that Pugachyov, who had the rare experience of playing 13 games in Russia\u2019s top league before being drafted to the NHL, can help now.<\/p>\n

And there are also no guarantees the Canadiens will emerge from this weekend with anyone else who can, despite their reported efforts to pry Marchenko out of Columbus and their interest in other bona fide players from around the league.<\/p>\n

Still, that didn\u2019t dull Hughes\u2019 belief he\u2019ll be able to execute a move \u2014 or moves \u2014 in the coming days, weeks or months to advance the Canadiens\u2019 immediate agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident we\u2019re going to be able to do something,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you when, but I feel like we\u2019re in a position to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coupling the 28th\u00a0pick with next year\u2019s third-rounder and selecting Pugachyov 26th\u00a0didn\u2019t weaken that position at all in his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that one late pick is going to be the difference between getting a high-end, top-six hockey player, top-four defenceman, top goaltender,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cIrrespective of what position it is, that\u2019s not going to be the difference in terms of your ability to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the Canadiens have one of the fullest cupboards in the league, stocked with elite prospects ready to pop and an abundance of proven NHL defencemen. Those are premium assets to be holding, especially in a market that saw 31 players who appeared in NHL games traded over the past week alone.<\/p>\n

Hughes said the Canadiens would part with some of them for the right player(s), but not just for the sake of accruing more talent and stocking arms to compete in the wild race that\u2019s developed in the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of really good prospects,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI get a lot of phone calls with respect to some of our prospects. They\u2019re good, they\u2019re going to be good hockey players for the Montreal Canadiens. If we\u2019re going to move them, we want adequate return to do it. We\u2019re going to explore things, but we\u2019re not just going to do it for the sake of doing it and look back in two years and say, \u2018What in the word were we thinking?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if it\u2019s something we think can help us now and help us for a significant period of time going forward, we\u2019re not going to be shy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether that\u2019s for Marchenko, or even for someone we haven\u2019t heard about \u2014 Hughes said part of the Canadiens\u2019 modus operandi has been to try to entice teams to trade players they hadn\u2019t marketed or previously considered marketing \u2014 the will to act now is strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you want a player that you know is established and capable of helping in today\u2019s market right now, you\u2019re going to be pay a pretty significant price,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t scare us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens also weren\u2019t scared to take a big swing on a player like Pugachyov, who was projected by most draft prognosticators to go in the second round.<\/p>\n

But due to the ongoing war with Ukraine, Russia\u2019s been largely inaccessible to everyone, including most NHL teams. The lack of live viewings has pushed the country\u2019s prospects further down NHL lists, never mind those being compiled by \u201cdraft experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens have had access, and they\u2019ve used it to take Ivan Demidov, Alexander Zharovsky and Pugachyov with each of their last first picks in the draft. Co-director of amateur scouting Nick Bobrov is Russian, he makes multiple visits to the country each year, and he has an expansive network there.<\/p>\n

That likely helped partner Martin Lapointe shape a much more rounded opinion on Pugachyov than he\u2019d otherwise been able to.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hughes said Lapointe \u2014 a former five-foot-11 right winger who made a prolific NHL career of playing like he was six-foot-three \u2014 was most elated the Canadiens got the bruising Russian who\u2019s listed at 198 pounds by NHL central scouting and listed at 225 pounds by\u00a0Eliteprospects.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaven’t verified, but I think he\u2019s over 200 pounds,\u201d said Hughes, \u201che plays like he\u2019s 225 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GM added he\u2019d offer clarity in the coming days as to how soon Pugachyov could be playing like a 225-pounder for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n

It was thought they might pick up the six-foot-three, goal-scoring right-winger from Columbus \u2014 and they still might.<\/p>\n

But the Canadiens are happy to welcome another big Russian into the fold Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROSSARD, Que. \u2014 On Friday night, the Montreal Canadiens traded for a six-foot-three Russian right winger. It just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-763503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}