Rumors Are Canadiens Making Moves And Looking To Make More!

For those teams not playing in the Stanley Cup finals their off season has officially been over for a few weeks now.  Most general manager’s are trying to figure out what some of their moves will be to improve their respective teams for a run at next years Stanley Cup Final.  The Montreal Canadiens seem to be one of the teams that isn’t waiting around, their making moves now.  They just signed a new head coach in Jacques Martin and GM Bob Gainey is moving on the player’s he wants.  Rumor is that the Habs desperately want to make a deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning for forward Vincent LeCavalier.  According to Montreal Canadiens sources Gainey had struck a deal with Tampa’s GM Brian Lawton, but Lawton then went ahead and broke the GM’s code of not talking about their perspective deal with others.  After Lawton received Gainey’s offer, he then tried to get other teams to make better deals based on what Montreal had valued LeCavalier at.  Gainey was miffed at the whole situation and trashed Lawton in the press.  Obviously the deal fell through but privately Tampa’s owners are pushing their GM to trade LeCavalier so they can get his salary off the books and  despite what happened Montreal is still interested.  Lawton is denying that LaCavalier is even available but I have a funny feeling that this deal will be made sooner rather than later.  The players who possibly will be involved are Chris Higgins and Mike Komisarek, two players who have not been playing up to the level Montreal expects.

One other thing I found out was that Montreal will not re-sign Saku Koivu, team captain for the last nine years.  Koivu has stated that if he didn’t sign a new deal with the Habs before july 1st then he would look to finish his NHL career elsewhere.  On the flip side it seems that while one Canadiens unrestricted free agent looks like he’s being let go, the other looks like he’s getting a raise and being offered the former player’s captaincy.  Alex Kovalev will likely sign a one-year deal worth between $6 and $7.5 million, according to Sovietsky Sport via TSN.  Kovalev was also offered Koivu’s captaincy.

Check back for more rumors and video highlights.  Below are highlights of the best plays of the week ending June 2nd.