In Hainsight: Will Hughes Finally End the Canadiens’ “Ménage à trois”?

At the start of the season, the Canadiens’ brass publicly acknowledged it was far from ideal to have three goaltenders on the roster. Still, after 61 games, all three goaltenders are still there. Samuel Montembeault has emerged as the team’s number one. He has signed a three-year extension carrying a $3,150,000 cap hit and has played 29 games, while Jake Allen and young Cayden Primeau have shared the remaining 34.

At the start of the season, keeping three goaltenders on the roster was understandable since Primeau couldn’t be sent down to Laval before clearing waivers, and Hughes had had phone calls enquiring about his availability throughout the Summer. Still, the Canadiens’ general manager didn’t feel comfortable trading Jake Allen just yet. Primeau was too unproven as an NHL goaltender then. Now, though, Primeau has shown he can be a serviceable backup, and his development is currently being hindered by Jake Allen’s presence.

Unfortunately for Hughes, Allen’s performance has been steadily declining for the last three years, this season included. Right now, he has a 3.68 GAA and a.892 save percentage numbers, which are on par with those of the New Jersey Devils’ goaltending. He’s, therefore, hardly an option for this team that could be looking for a goaltender.

At one stage, it looked like the Kings could need a goaltender, but they’ve been riding the Cam Talbot, Dave Rittich tandem, and it has been doing just fine. The save percentage of both goalies is .916 and .914. There would be no point in getting Allen, especially not with that cap hit.

To complicate matters further, the Canadiens only have one salary retention spot left, and there is a chance they’ll want to use it to move David Savard for a much more substantial return than what they would get for Jake Allen, whose stock is so low. The Athletic’s Arpon Basu believes Savard is the Habs’ player most susceptible to move before the deadline, even though the odds are not that high.

Perhaps Allen will be more tradable next season being a pending UFA, but even that is doubtful and Hughes just cannot afford to have three goalies on the roster, Primeau needs to play much more to have a chance of reaching the potential Canadiens’ scouts saw in him when they drafted him.

At this stage it’s tough to imagine how a contender could feel like Allen is the piece they’re missing to propel themselves to the Stanley Cup, because that’s what the trade deadline is about, contenders are filling up while the bottom of the standings teams maximize their assets return. The prerequisite, however, to join the trading frenzy is to have desirable assets, which, unfortunately for Hughes, Allen is not.