If you want to know why Alex Newhook is now a Montreal Canadien and Pierre-Luc Dubois isn’t, it comes down to timing and organizational philosophy.
The Canadiens acquired the young centre from the Colorado Avalanche earlier Tuesday for the 31st and 37th picks in this year’s draft, along with defenceman Gianni Fairbrother, because, as general manager Kent Hughes said from Nashville hours later, “we’re always going to look to advance the team without sacrificing the future of the team.”
Seeing the Los Angeles Kings give established players Alex Iafallo, Gabriel Vilardi, Rasmus Kupari and a 2024-second round pick to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Dubois, who signed an eight-year, $68-million contract, spoke to where they’re at in their process—steps ahead of the Canadiens, who either weren’t going to give up those types of pieces to the Jets or weren’t going to give up too much of their future to acquire more of those types of pieces from other teams to flip for Dubois.
Whether the Canadiens are better off with Newhook than they would’ve been with Dubois, who’s six-foot-two and plays every bit his size, is questionable at best. The former has topped out at 31 points over his short NHL career and has yet to prove he can be a bona fide top-six player on a good team, while the latter, who was born and raised just outside of Montreal, is an established second-line centre who could be considered a No. 1 after having eclipsed 20 goals four times in his career and recorded over 60 points in each of the last two seasons.
Dubois, who just turned 25 three days ago, also has 10 goals and 26 points in 38 career Stanley Cup Playoff games and possesses the type of profile any team looking to become a perennial contender should covet.
But the cost to acquire him proved too prohibitive for the Canadiens.
The cost to acquire Newhook, who was drafted 16th overall in 2019, wasn’t, and it’s a safe bet the Canadiens are likely better off today for having paid it.
Newhook, a native of St. John’s, Nfld., is six months out from his 23rd birthday, has 159 games of NHL experience, is in possession of a Stanley Cup ring and still has plenty of untapped potential. The wager the Canadiens are making on him has as little risk to it as the one they made on Kirby Dach at last year’s draft—that, with more opportunity than he was given in his first NHL home and a chance to work with cutting-edge development and coaching staffs the Canadiens have built, Newhook’s value will be capitalized on much faster than the value of the picks and the prospect given to Colorado would’ve been.
“I think he’s definitely going to get an opportunity in a better chair,” affirmed Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “In Colorado, he was playing 12-13 minutes. We’re going to ask him to play more than that and he’ll be able to play a bigger role.
“You also can’t ignore the experience he gained winning (in 2022). Even if he was playing 12-13 minutes, he’s got 150 games of experience, he’s a guy who’s 22, he’s won a Stanley Cup, he’s a guy that reflects a lot of what we look for in terms of culture and style of play. He’s got pace. He’s not the biggest, but he’s still heavy. We’re trying to put him in an environment where he could show more.”
If Newhook takes advantage of it—much like Dach already has since the Canadiens traded Alex Romanov to the New York Islanders for the 13th-overall pick in 2022, which they flipped along with the 66th pick in that draft to Chicago to acquire him—the price they paid will certainly be seen as justifiable. It’s arguable it already is when you consider that the Canadiens’ prospect cupboard is full of the same quality of player they would’ve likely obtained in the slots they were slated to draft in Wednesday and Thursday and that Fairbrother was very far down the list of left-shot defencemen currently in their system.
“We made a trade where we gave up two good picks,” said Hughes, “but we’re bringing in a young player who can grow with us and isn’t an unrestricted free agent for another five years.”
Sources informed us the Canadiens have yet to enter into contract negotiations with Newhook, who’s a restricted free agent, but it’s more than reasonable to infer whatever deal they work out with him won’t handcuff them from continuing to build their team as they intend—much like Dach’s contract hasn’t.
Dach signed a four-year, $13.45-million contract last September, and it’s already paying dividends for the Canadiens, who watched him set career highs in goals (14) and points (38) in his first season in their uniform. He had put up 19 goals and 59 points in 152 games with the Blackhawks before coming to the Canadiens, Newhook produced 27 goals and 66 points in 159 games with Colorado, so the payout for Newhook should be similar.
The hope is that the payoff will be, too.
The Canadiens have time to find out.
As St. Louis said, they’re no longer in the infancy stage of their build, but he’s also well aware that they’re not quite as advanced as the Kings are.
Hence Dubois will be wearing black and silver for the foreseeable future, while Newhook, who was billed by Hughes and St. Louis as a speedy centre who can also play wing, the power play, the penalty kill, and much bigger than his five-foot-10, 190-pound frame would suggest, is given the chance to move the bleu, blanc et rouge further along in their process.
He may not have popped in Colorado, but there’s reason to believe he will in Montreal.
“It takes time to grow,” said Hughes. “We watched a kid like Chandler Stephenson make a heck of a contribution to (the 2023 Stanley Cup Champion) Vegas (Golden Knights). If we were to look at his history and how old he is and how long it took him to kind of find his groove at the National Hockey League level and maybe play the game like he had done at the American Hockey League level or amateur hockey, it takes time for players. It’s harder to do that when you come to an experienced team where, as Marty calls it, there aren’t as many chairs available to assume that role. And once you get stuck in that situation where you feel that any little mistake is going to cost you that chair, it’s a different environment in terms of how you have success.
“We’ve had the luxury, as we go through this process, that players can make mistakes. Maybe one day we’re going to be different; we’re going to be trying to win the Stanley Cup, feel we’re really close and mistakes are going to be more costly. We hope that in that moment we’ll still have an eye towards the future, but it’s just a different environment with the state that we’re in versus a Colorado at this point.”
Moving draft picks and a middling prospect for Newhook should accelerate that process.
He improves a centre line headed by Nick Suzuki, bolstered by Dach and deepened by the recent re-signing of Sean Monahan.
Christian Dvorak and Jake Evans also remain up the middle, while prospect Owen Beck is expected to push for a roster spot at training camp in the fall.
“You can never have enough centres,” said St. Louis.
The Canadiens could add another one with the fifth-overall pick on Wednesday.
They also have eight picks in subsequent rounds to continue to advance their cause.
Hughes said he’s confident the Canadiens will get a very good player should they hold their position in the first round, and he suggested they’d get an even better one if they’re able to move up the draft order.
The GM, who acknowledged he met with Russian prospect Matvei Michkov in Nashville and said the player made a good impression, didn’t strike that possibility, nor did he eliminate the one of moving down in the first round.
“We’re open for anything,” Hughes said.
It just has to fit with the Canadiens’ philosophy and make sense based on their timeline.