Maddox Dagenais was not the reason Jeff Gorton said the Canadiens should move. On Thursday, he made the opposite point: the Canadiens will not feel pressured to act just because other teams in the Atlantic Division are busy.
"On est conscients que notre division est vraiment très forte" and "Je ne pense pas que ce serait la meilleure décision que de voir une autre équipe faire quelque chose et de se contenter de réagir en conséquence." Gorton also said, "J’espère que les amateurs continueront à faire confiance à l’état-major."
Jeff Gorton and the Atlantic Division
Gorton’s message was plain. The Canadiens know the Atlantic Division is strong, but strength alone will not push them into spending assets on a reactionary move. He said the club should avoid that kind of response even as the market heats up before the NHL draft.
That stance matters because the Canadiens are being asked to judge the market, not chase it. Gorton said the team has been improving continuously for four years, which is the case he put in front of fans who want to see whether patience still fits the roster plan.
Luke Tuch and Hunter McKown
The complication came Thursday night, when the Canadiens made a minor trade anyway. They sent the rights to Luke Tuch to the Blue Jackets de Columbus in exchange for the rights to Hunter McKown.
Tuch and McKown spent the last season in the American Hockey League, and both could become restricted free agents on July 1. The deal did not change Gorton’s public line, but it did show the Canadiens were not standing still while insisting they would not react to every move around them.
Kent Hughes and the next step
Kent Hughes now has the same market in front of him that Gorton described: active, noisy and costly if a club starts bidding simply to keep pace. The Canadiens already made one small swap, so the next question is not whether they can move, but whether they decide the price is worth paying.
For now, Gorton is asking for trust while the draft pressure builds. Whether the Canadiens turn that into a bigger move before July 1 is the part that still has to play out.
