Gorton: ‘We’re going to make calculated decisions’

MONTREAL – With the 2026 NHL Draft around the corner, Canadiens President, Hockey Operations Jeff Gorton addressed the media at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard on Thursday.

Gorton addressed a number of topics, including recent trades around the NHL and Montreal’s draft strategy. Here’s a look at some of what he said:

Please note questions and answers have been modified for clarity and conciseness.

On how he feels the Canadiens should respond to the flurry of trades made around the NHL recently:

I don't think it's a great way to go about it, to just be reactive, to [say that] other teams are doing some things, so it's our turn. We're going to make calculated decisions on things we're doing. Hopefully you've seen that in the past since we've been here; we're going to continue doing that. Would we like to improve our team? Yes. Are we active calling everybody, talking and looking at different situations? Yes. But honestly, we don't feel the pressure from anywhere else to do anything that doesn't fit into what we want to do.

On how likely the Canadiens will be using their first-round pick at 28th overall: 

I would say as of right now, I think there’s a pretty good chance we'll be picking at 28. 

On how things are progressing with the Brendan Gallagher situation: 

We continue to talk to Brendan. We're pretty open with him and supportive. We'll see what happens here. We've had private conversations with him about what he wants to do; we've talked to him about that. I'll leave it there for now. 

On the debate between picking the best available player vs. positional need vs. organizational fit: 

It's hard, because we do stand in front of them and tell them all the time: tell us who the best player available is. And then we'll ask, “Maybe is there this type of player? Where does this fit? How far is that below the best player?” That's kind of how we try to do it. But it's hard, if you're an amateur scout, to pretend like you don't know what's going on with our team and what we need. So, what we want them to do is focus on the best player and tell us who the best players are and put that order together. And then, we'll go at them with the questions of, “What is this like?”