MONTREAL -- Sean Monahan’s future with the Montreal Canadiens is unclear with the NHL Trade Deadline approaching on March 8.
The 29-year-old forward is on his second straight one-year contract with Montreal and general manager Kent Hughes said Monday “anything is possible” when it comes to the team’s plans for Monahan before the deadline.
“When you talk about signing a player to a one-year deal and convincing a player to come to a team like ours that’s in a phase of building,” Hughes said, “as a player I think you evaluate it and look at what the opportunity is because you’re coming in trying to reset, right after a number of injury-riddled seasons where he hasn’t been able to play, but also to be able to play.
“So the kind of more open-ended situation with Sean was come here and play, and let’s see where we are when we get to the deadline. And that’s still the case.”
Monahan has 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists) in 42 games entering Monday. He re-signed with the Canadiens for $1.985 million this offseason after having 17 points (six goals, 11 assists) in 25 games last season before it was cut short by a lower-body injury.
In 723 NHL games with the Calgary Flames and Canadiens, he has 503 points (229 goals, 274 points).
The Canadiens enter their game against the Colorado Avalanche on Monday (7 p.m. ET; RDS, SN, ALT) with a record of 17-18-7, second-to-last in the Atlantic Division.
“As for us, the plan remains the same,” Hughes said. “We won’t change course, everything we do will be to improve our team in the future, we’re not going to mess with that.”
Unlike Monahan, the Canadiens have not been able to avoid injuries and the loss of key forwards Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook have had a significant impact on the team’s progression in a rebuilding phase.
Dach, a 22-year-old forward, tore the MCL and ACL in his right knee in the second game of the season and will not play again this season. Newhook, 22, sustained a high ankle sprain on Nov. 30 and is expected to be out until at least mid-February.
“Obviously we didn’t want to go through another year of injuries,” Hughes said. “When it’s the first period of the second game and we lose Kirby Dach for the season, it complicates things in many ways. Not just our potential to compete every night, but in the big picture, from management’s perspective, we’ve lost a year to evaluate Kirby Dach, where he is in his game.
“We know that the potential is there, but of course we would have liked to see him on the ice. We lost Alex Newhook for two and a half months just when we were starting to see some chemistry developing between him and (Nick) Suzuki. So that obviously complicates things.”
The Canadiens will continue to carry three goalies, Sam Montembeault, Jake Allen and Cayden Primeau, which they have done since the beginning of the season.
“We weren’t prepared to put Cayden (Primeau) on waivers,” Hughes said. “When we discussed it during training camp, we were pretty sure that he would be claimed on waivers so we decided that we would keep the three goalies and we would evaluate offers and if there was a trade to be made, we would make it. The plan was not to keep three goalies for the whole season, it’s still not the plan, but I can’t tell you today that we’re certain we’ll make a trade.”
