Major trade between the Canadiens and the Blackhawks : it's a real steal
One can say without being too wrong that the acquisition of Kirby Dach is so far one of the best moves by Kent Hughes as the general manager of the Canadiens.
Not only did number 77 have the best season of his career in 2022-2023, but he established himself as the potential second-line center of the team, much to the delight of the fans.
However, as reported by Cimon Asselin from the website Habsolumentfan.com, it's partially thanks to Kent Hughes' predecessor that Kirby Dach is now wearing the CH colors.
For that, let's go back to the 2015-2016 season when Marc Bergevin traded veterans Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for a certain Phillip Danault and a second-round pick in 2018, which eventually became Alexander Romanov.
With this move, the former GM of the Canadiens looked like a genius because Danault became one of the best center players for the CH over five seasons.
He accumulated a total of 194 points, including 50 goals in Montreal, and for financial reasons, he left the team to join the Los Angeles Kings in the summer of 2021.
And we know what happened next, on July 7, 2002, in a Bell Center packed to the rafters for the NHL draft, Commissioner Gary Bettman announced to the crowd this famous three-team trade that sent Romanov to the Islanders and Kirby Dach to Montreal.
We can therefore conclude that it's partly thanks to Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann that the organization was able to get their hands on an excellent young hockey player who at 22, still has many great years of hockey ahead of him.
Two very lucrative transactions with the Chicago Blackhawks.
| POLL | ||
Do you think Dach will be better than Philip Danault? | ||
| Yes | 1485 | 79.4 % |
| No | 385 | 20.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
