Management and Coaches

Really shrewd management by Hughes with his latest signing ( Ylonen). Nice to see a guy not tossing out 4 year deals like candy to anybody who can stand on skates. Anxious to see how he deals with the extra bodies.

Former Edmonton Oilers player Fernando Pisani has been hired by the Montreal Canadiens as a scout.

Largely agreed that I haven't hated any of the deals he's handed out thus far. That said, it's a lot easier to be frugal when you're not a competitive team. The bigger test comes when you're challenging for the playoffs and especially for the Cup or when your own job is on the line. Those are situations where GMs tend to scramble and overpay for players (ie I need to win now so here's a 6-year deal for a 32 year-old that'll help me for the first 2-3 years and then who cares about what happens later). So we'll see if Hughes is able to maintain his hardball stance as he becomes more desperate...

It's going to be a work in progress. Trying to work with what he's got. Probably has too much of what he doesn't want. Have to wonder if he's being encouraged by HUGO to try different things. Anyway, definitely more growing pains to be expected.

Can't blame Columbus for trying, but hard to imagine why he'd have any interest (and given this would technically be a demotion, no reason for Montreal to grant permission other than as a favor).

After being forced out of 2 franchises that would go on to benefit from his strong work, the idea he'd leave Montreal in the middle of a rebuild he architected to go to a smaller market that's been a dumpster fire for years? I guess you never know what motivates someone - maybe he really preferred GM over president role, or prefers to work in the USA or loved working with Davidson or whatever, but it always seemed a little far-fetched.