The Goalie Market Expected To Heat Up Once Calendar Flips To January 2024
TSN Hockey Analyst Darren Dreger was on TSN Radio in Montreal and when asked about the goalie market, he believes the Canadiens hold a strong position as action will pick up again in early January, especially around Jake Allen.
NHL Rumors: Montreal Canadiens Control The Goalie Market
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Host: “All right, so I’m just setting yourself up for that same generic question we’ve been asking you for a while. I’m watching Insider Trading Pierre LeBrun discussing about the goaltending. Kent Hughes and the phone calls. Montembeault I don’t believe he’s in play. You would know better than me. But how long can some of these teams wait to like you look at Carolina, you look at the Devils. There’s a point here where the math it’s not, it’s not going to crush you.
But you know, how long are you going to wait for Freddie Anderson? How long before the Devils figure things out and they make their move and if you’re Carolina, you look at the Devils in like, oh, they already addressed their goaltending needs. Where are we?
So do you think that maybe like you had told me perhaps somewhere towards the end of January. Can you see the goalie market start to heat up a little bit before that because some general managers want to make a play in early January?”
NHL Rumors: Goaltending Carousel To Wait Until 2024
Darren Dreger: “Yes, I can. And there’s no doubt that Kent Hughes has had a number of different conversations with the teams that you’ve mentioned. I look even at Edmonton, right? They’ve got Cal Pickard and Stuart Skinner and it doesn’t look like Jack Campbell is going to resurface in the NHL anytime soon.
And then you look at what happened last night in Buffalo where the Sabres just absolutely slapped Ilya Samsonov and the Toronto Maple Leafs around. Samsonov replaced by Marty Jones and now there’s talk of okay what do the Leafs do with Samsonov. Do they wave him? Do they send them to the Toronto Marlies? Why do you do that? I can appreciate why you’d want to do that and it makes sense to do it. But you’ve got Joseph Woll on the sidelines with injury until February. So the goalie market is, is heating up and Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens are in good position.
Look Sam Montembeault is the future. He’s part of the future in Montreal. That’s why they extended him. They believe he’s going to be a very good National Hockey League starting goaltender. Is he available? No, not unless somebody steps up with a ridiculous offer that Hughes can’t ignore. So we’re talking about Jake Allen, and we’re looking at Cayden Primeau and you know the three goalie rotations seldom works.
NHL Rumors: The Goalie Carousel – Who could be selling, and two teams that will have decisions
It’s been okay in Montreal, but I think that it’s it’s also kind of stalled the process a little bit because even if a team has interest in Cayden Primeau, they want to see more. They need to see more reps, more rotations and they haven’t been able to do that because of the three goalies.
I think the market heats up through desperation from some of the clubs that we’ve talked about, but I can’t identify which goalie is most likely, other than when you look at the resume of Jake Allen and everything he’s accomplished. I think that there might be more of a feeling of insurance and security and trying to make a deal on Allen but he also has no trade protection. So it’s not going to be easy.”
