Justin Barron went out to dinner with some Montreal Canadiens teammates in Old Montreal on Wednesday night, a long, enjoyable meal that lasted about three hours.
Also present were Kaiden Guhle, Arber Hhekaj, Jayden Struble and Michael Pezzetta.
As the meal progressed, things happened in the NHL. Kaapo Kakko was traded from the New York Rangers to the Seattle Kraken. Pierre-Olivier Joseph was traded from the St. Louis Blues to the Pittsburgh Penguins. It became a conversation around the table.
“Every time someone checked their phone,” Hekaj said, “someone was making a purchase.”
After dinner, Barron drove his teammates home. And as they drove, there was a call over the car’s Bluetooth.
It was Jeff Gorton.
When he saw it was the Canadiens’ executive vice president of hockey, Barron stopped the car. He had to take the call, and since they were close to the destination, his teammates got out and walked the rest of the way.
It turns out there was another trade to discuss.
“We didn’t know what it could be,” Hekaj said, “but something had to happen.”
Barron found himself in a situation where he found out he had been traded to the Nashville Predators for defenseman Alexander Carrier.
He had just finished his last dinner as a member of the Canadiens.
One teammate who wasn’t in the car was Struble; he was driven home by Uber. He was also the teammate most affected by this trade.
“He was traded five minutes after we left,” Struble said Thursday after practice before leaving for Detroit. “I didn’t see him until this morning. I got home, went to bed and that was it. I woke up and my mom texted me, I got it from my mom.
“But it’s boring, honestly. That’s the shitty part of hockey. You get close to a guy and you never know when he’s going to go. But he’s in a good situation in Nashville, so I’m happy for him.
Coach Martin St. Louis confirmed Thursday that his intention is for Carrier, who has missed the Predators’ last four games with an upper-body injury, to be in the lineup Friday against the Detroit Red Wings. That will most likely mean Struble will be out of the lineup and barring injury, which could be his reality for a while. Struble and Barron have been in and out of the lineup lately, but neither of them has fully earned (or rather in Struble’s case) the trust of St. Louis. With Carrier falling into the top four with Mike Matheson, Guhle and Lane Hutson, there isn’t much room for Struble as Hekaj and David Savard become a reliable third pair.
Asked about this new reality with the addition of the veteran linebacker to the group, Struble let out a big sigh.
“Yeah, there’s not much I can do,” he said. “Obviously they’re going to do what’s best for the team, and I’ll do what I can to come in and help. But it’s up to them.”
St. Louis mentioned that Struble needs to elevate the floor, that when there’s a bad game, it can be really bad, and that he needs to make bad games less bad. But Strubl was a little confused by the assessment of his game.
Asked if there was any doubt in his game, he reluctantly agreed, but didn’t.
“Honestly, I thought I was playing really well, but I think that’s because they took me off the field,” he said. “But I thought I was playing pretty good hockey before they took me off the field. Yeah, I’m not sure.”
A reliable, dynamic and highly competitive defender with a willingness to block shots, Carrier makes managing a defense an easy task on the road, where plays can’t be controlled. This is where playing Barron was most problematic, as St. Louis wanted to protect him against top players. The same seems to be happening with Struble, though he has shown this season that he can be effective against strong competition.
Now having the ability to have at least one of Matheson, Guhle, Carrier and, to a lesser extent, Savard on the ice makes games less important, as they always are.
“It makes it easier how we’re going to do things with a guy that you’re not worried about who’s on the ice against him,” St. Louis said.
But there is another element to this trade, and it will be reflected in how the Canadiens plan to use their goaltending this weekend. According to St. Louis, Sam Montembeault will start Friday night in Detroit, the first of a home-and-away series, and the two teams will play again on Saturday at the Bell Centre. Backup goaltender Kayden Primeau would typically play one of two games in this situation. Last season, for the final two games of the regular season, that was the scenario, with Montembeault starting in Detroit and Primeau playing in the back half in Montreal.
But St. Louis declined to confirm whether Primeau would play Saturday, after opting out of back-to-back games earlier this season to confirm which game Primeau would play. This suggests the Canadiens will at least consider using Montembeault in both games, indicating a need to get wins and move up the Eastern Conference standings.
Luckily for the Canadiens, the rest of the conference has smoothed out their poor start to the season; There were eight teams (half the conference) playing at .500 or worse heading into Thursday night’s games. The Ottawa Senators have won six of their last seven games and moved up from second-to-last place in the conference on Dec. 4, with the second wild card heading into Thursday’s game against the Calgary Flames.
For the Canadiens to put together a similar hot streak and make a similar rise in the standings, especially with a brutal schedule on the horizon after the Christmas break, it will take an extraordinary turnaround in their overall level of play.
But it’s possible.
Canadiens management has shown its players that it believes that’s possible by trading a potential future piece in Barron for current acquisition Carrier.
“We’ve added an older player to a young core on defense here, a player with a little more time in the league, a little more of a veteran presence,” Guhle said. “It’s a decision they made to help us, and I think that’s going to be the case.”