{"id":762895,"date":"2026-06-26T17:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762895\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:28:08","slug":"morning-notes-horvat-marchenko-capitals-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762895\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Notes: Horvat, Marchenko, Capitals \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Montreal Canadiens inquired about the availability of center Bo Horvat<\/a> with the New York Islanders, and were told he is not available via trade, reports The Athletic\u2019s Pierre LeBrun<\/a>. According to LeBrun, Canadiens GM Kent Hughes \u201chas not been shy about calling about guys who likely aren\u2019t even available\u201d in order to \u201cget a full scope of the trade market, not just the obvious names.\u201d Horvat, 31, scored 31 goals and 57 points in 68 games for the Islanders last season.<\/p>\n

It has been widely reported that the Canadiens have entered the offseason with an aggressive posture towards upgrading their roster. The team took a similar approach one year ago, trading a haul of assets to the New York Islanders for defenseman Noah Dobson<\/a>. Dobson had a strong first season in Montreal and his efforts helped the team, which has only recently emerged from a rebuild, make a run to the Eastern Conference Final. The Canadiens\u2019 biggest need is a second-line center behind Selke Trophy winner Nick Suzuki<\/a>, and it appears they are willing to even consider veteran players such as Horvat, not exclusively younger players of a similar age to the team\u2019s current stars.<\/p>\n

Other notes from around the NHL:<\/p>\n

LeBrun also reported that the Blue Jackets\u2019 response to teams that inquire about the trade availability of star winger Kirill Marchenko<\/a> has \u201cbeen a firm no.\u201d The 25-year-old has one year left on his $3.85MM AAV contract, after which he will be an arbitration-eligible RFA just one year away from being able to hit unrestricted free agency. While we previously covered a report<\/a> that the Canadiens had inquired about Marchenko, the\u00a0 implication here is that Columbus is fully committed to retaining the winger into his UFA years and beyond, and won\u2019t entertain trading him unless it becomes abundantly clear the two parties can\u2019t reach an agreement on an extension.
\nIn one other note, LeBrun indicated that the Capitals are not done adding in what has been a transformative offseason for the team, and are \u201clooking to add a blueliner come free agency.\u201d The Capitals traded away star defenseman John Carlson<\/a> at the trade deadline and did not replace him, and blueliner Rasmus Sandin<\/a> will be out for an extended period after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL. While Washington\u2019s additions have focused on forwards thus far, it appears that focus will shift to the blueline come July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens inquired about the availability of center Bo Horvat with the New York Islanders, and were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[9726,49,48,755,186832,743,750,448,82,754],"class_list":["post-762895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-bo-horvat","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-kirill-marchenko","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-washington-capitals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}