What’s the point of re-signing Sean Monahan (a net-positive contributor, when healthy) if you’re going to both hurt your tank and sell him for relative peanuts? Why not just simply avoid the whole thing entirely and enjoy a better draft rank and much more valuable draft pick!
Sean Monahan is 3rd on the Habs in points (35pts), 3rd in points-per-game (0.71), 3rd in shots (104) and his 18:27 was 3rd in Time On Ice/Game Play among forwards. He was 2nd place on our team with 3 game-winning goals, tied for 2nd in Power-play points with 16, and he was tied 1st on the roster with two Short-Handed Goals.
In short: Sean Monahan was a top6 player for the Habs in the 2023-2024 season. He was on a darling contract of just under $2m. He had remained healthy and his teammates loved him. His new team is going to love him if he remains healthy.
Now that he’s gone in exchange for a paltry 1st round pick (and highly unlikely conditional 3rd round pick to come some years from now), I’m thinking Kent Hughes got it wrong re-signing him in the first place.
The Habs are ranked 7th of 8 in the Atlantic division and tied with Buffalo for 6th of 8 in pt% (0.490) with only Ottawa behind (0.447). In the Eastern Conference the Habs are 14th of 16 and only ahead of Ottawa and Columbus (0.420). Taking on the whole NHL, there are six NHL teams with a pt% lower than the Habs.
Putting draft lottery chaos aside1, due to being just a bit better than other teams it is unlikely the Habs will pick in the ever-valuable top3 spots in the upcoming 2024 draft.
While he’s half the player he was in his prime, I think Sean Monahan was a major factor in this 'being a little bit better than those other teams this season.
Kent Hughes’ acquisition of Sean Monahan in the 2023 off-season meant the Habs re-acquired a good-but-fragile forward. Monahan stayed healthy and his positive contribution was appreciated but it meant it a sexy draft rank (one in the top3) was made just that much less attainable.
The catch is that Monahan’s impact on the Habs had to be a positive for him to even attract trade-market interest in the first place… but then the return on the trade had to make it all worth while! For all this trouble, Hughes managed to get only the first round pick and a highly unlikely 3rd round pick (which would mean the first round pick would be 32nd overall, not good!)
A (presumably) late first round pick is not worth hurting your draft rank by a few spots.
Best Case Scenario: Assume Winnipeg loses in the first round and their pick is ranked somewhere 17-20. Could the Habs package their own 7th overall and Winnipeg’s 17th overall (the best possible pick it could be) to move up to 3rd overall? Unlikely!
In the 2023 draft the Habs were rumoured to have turned down offers to move down from 5th overall. The only top3 pick that has been traded in the last 10+ years was traded long before the season even started2.
Which team in their right mind would accept a late first round pick to move from 3rd overall to 7th overall? It depends on the draft cohort but even if players ranked 3-8 are all “similar”, it behooves a team to be ahead of the rankings rather than just pick up whatever has been left over.
Normal Case Scenario: Winnipeg wins at least their first playoffs matchup, their first round pick is therefore 22nd overall or worse. The Habs will then certainly not manage to trade into the top3 draft ranks without drawing resources from elsewhere.
Concluding Thoughts
Acquiring players with an eye to sell them at the trade deadline can be a Faustian bargain. Even if you’re paid to take a player’s contract (such as with Hughes’ initial acquisition of Monahan from Calgary), their projected impact to the draft rank (whether negative, positive, or neutral) should be weighed carefully against the strategic needs of the organisation.
What if the player becomes injured at an inopportune time and is then not traded? This happened to Hughes in 2023.
What if they perform well but you don’t manage to get the right return? This also happened to Hughes just now in 2024
Maybe Hughes won’t fall for it a third time in 2025 but I sure hope we’re done tanking and selling by then.
Where up to two teams can change draft rank based on some standings-weighted lottery balls
As part of the package returned to Ottawa for trading superstar defender Erik Karlsson to San Jose
My hunch: management believed they had a shot at playoffs (or compete for playoffs) with Monahan and Kirby Dach in their lineup (who was not out for season when Monahan was signed). Then Dach got injured, which tanked the season plan, and they got rid of Monahan relatively early to make up some ground in the race for the bottom.
Mostly watching this season has been mediocre, don't have as much time to enjoy as I once had anyway, but I think on a personal level it's good for the current team to not be dead last. With the caveat, who really knows.