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*UPDATED* Canadiens Acquire Max Domi for A Galchenyuk… Domi as 2nd line C?

June 16, 2018, 12:34 AM ET [845 Comments]
Brandon Smillie
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
***UPDATE: Domi signed for 2 years, $3.15 million per season***

Wow!

Big deal tonight and to be honest I don’t think the Habs are done at all.

Tonight the Canadiens dealt away their last 3rd overall pick (2012) in the 24 year old Alex Galchenyuk to the Arizona Coyotes for 23 year old, former 12th overall pick (2013) Max Domi.

Both players had down years by their own standards despite both setting career highs in assists (AG 32, MD 36). Galchenyuk ended up with 19 G and 32 A in 82 games compared to Domi’s 9 G and 36 A in 82 games.

Galchenyuk has two more seasons left on his current contract at $4.9 million while Domi requires a new contract for the 18-19 season as his 3 year entry level contract has just expired ($863,333 cap hit). Domi will likely gather in the range of $3-$4 million per on his next deal. ***UPDATE: Nailed it***




Now, how do I feel about this….

Shocked for one. I didn’t want to see Galchenyuk dealt as I had hopes he could rebound and become a consistent 60 point player. But it was more hopes than anything as his play this year, while very good at times, was still plagued by the same issues of the previous 5 seasons. Galchenyuk is quite soft, reluctant to battle, and can’t finish. I am a fan as I’m saying this but I have to also be honest.

I know his warts from a spectator standpoint, but the warts that only the inner circles know about must have made Bergevin jump at a trade as soon as a quality one presented itself. I think I recall one of the talking heads say during the season that Galchenyuk had minimal value and is viewed amongst team managers as a “Dog”. Not sure who said that, or if it’s true for that matter, but entering season 7 in the NHL all of us had to be wondering if this was it. Is Galchenyuk a soft winger who struggles with consistency and health who’s best asset is a shot from the circle on the PP with some nice passes here and there?

Galchenyuk is a player I kept waiting on to break out and maybe he will in Arizona. Coyotes GM Chayka seems to believe he’s landed a Center…



So either he hasn’t watched any Habs games, or he’s only seen about 20 or so when Galchenyuk was effective at C. Unfortunately, Galchenyuk is a defensive liability and a streaky scorer. Alex’s best season was 3 years ago when he scored 30 G and 26 A in 82 games and has trended down since. By contrast Domi’s best season was his rookie campaign where he put up 18 G and 34 A for 52 points in 81games (.63 PPG) in the 15-16 season. The following season he only played 59 games dues to injury and scored 9 G and 29 A (.64 PPG). This season was a big disappointment for Domi in a contract year as he only managed 9 G again (4 Empty netters!) but did have a career high in assists with 36 in 82 games.

I surmise that Domi wanted to be paid for potential on his upcoming deal and Chayka wanted nothing to do with that. With the Coyotes also struggling to fill the 2nd line C void due to D Strome’s cement skates they saw an opportunity to land a cost controlled, quality player in Galchenyuk and give him a second lease on life at the C position. Now I’m not sure if Galchenyuk actually wants to play Center, from comments in the past, but nonetheless Arizona appears ready to use him there so we will see how that experiment works out.




In Max Domi the Canadiens acquire a driven, hard to play against player with impact potential. Only 3 years into his career he was given up on by the Coyotes of all franchises, but also the Coyotes that finished one point worse than the Habs so maybe I should be a bit more humble.

Domi is a player that had energy playmaker written all over him after a successful junior career with London in the OHL where he was a two time league champion and World Junior Gold medalist.

In his final two seasons with the London Knights, Domi had 195 points (66 Goals) in 118 games and was the Captain in his final season. This is a player who also had 5 G and 5 A in 7 games on his way to World Junior Gold.

To those thinking this is a terrible downgrade for the Canadiens I would suggest you check out these players history’s and performance. Domi is still in his career infancy and Galchenyuk has had 3 more seasons of NHL experience to establish himself. Galchenyuk also has had Drouin, Pacioretty, and Gallager to play with while Domi has been part of a team of rookies and throw away veterans (save for Shane Doan, respect) where the best players were O Ekman-Larsson (who’s elite) and Domi himself until this last season saw the emergence of elite F Clayton Keller.

This is a team that was relying on rookies to walk in and lead and absorbing terrible contracts. Not exactly a fantastic culture to learn and excel in.




In Montreal Domi will have some pretty established, elite level leaders in Price, Weber, Gallagher and (maybe) Pacioretty to lean on. The player will have a chance to see what it’s like to win in a hockey market and learn to cope with losing in a hockey market. Some players relish these opportunities and some don’t. I don’t know if Galchenyuk ever showed he had big game potential for the Canadiens, but now Domi will have his shot.

Consider also that Galchenyuk is a career .61 PPG player in 418 NHL games. Domi is currently an identical .61 PPG player in 222 NHL games. At worst this is a sideways trade, at best Domi thrives in a hockey market with some solid NHL vets.

One more point to consider is Domi took 412 Face Offs last season winning 185 of them for a winning percentage of 44.9%. This put Domi 4th on the Coyotes in draws behind Stepan (clear #1), Dvorak, and Richardson. All three of them had over 1000 face offs though, so it would appear the Coyotes were trying Domi at C starting around mid January 2018.

While Domi’s offense dipped, his coach seemed to think it was really a matter of time before Domi figured it out. The following quotes are from AZCentral.com...

“He’s actually been doing a good job defensively,” Tocchet said of Domi. “Obviously we need more offense and we’re trying to get him to shoot the puck. The one good thing by playing center is he’s done a good job in our own end. That’s a positive, now we just need to get more offense from him. Right now it’s a little bit of a mental block where he’s not shooting the puck.”

Note: Domi had 150 shots last season to Galchenyuk’s 213.




Despite the lack of scoring in Domi’s game Tocchet was confident with Domi at C due to his responsible play…

“Sometimes you want to see a guy work his way out of it,” Tocchet said. “As long as he’s playing well defensively — because if he’s not playing well defensively, it’s a whole different story — you want to try to keep him in the lineup and see him work himself out of it.”

This is where I see a major difference in the two traded players. Galchenyuk is not good at Defense and doesn’t appear to have the willingness to become more responsible. All any fan ever wanted from him was to be a 60 point C but for any offense created there was offense the other way too. They can kind of cancel each other out if you think about it. But if the player can play responsibly in his own end and has impact offensive potential like Domi has shown, well that could already slant this trade in the Canadiens favor as that part of the ice is the teams biggest weakness.




In this regard the trade could be a solid win for the Canadiens, IF Galchenyuk still struggles at C despite his new home and IF Domi can score 20 G and put up 50 + points at C without being a complete defensive liability.

Worst case, both players remain top 6 wingers except the Habs get the younger player with more desire in his game.

I’ll leave this with one more excerpt from that AZCentral.com article…

Domi said he’s been watching a lot of video on the league’s top centers such as Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews in an effort to see how they’re able to provide offense while also being responsible in their own zones.

“It’s really difficult and you gain more respect for centers in this league that can defend and provide offense,” Domi said. “You try to watch video on those guys and see how they defend against the top line and still create offense. It takes time to learn that and that’s what I’m going through right now.”

“You’re still part of the team so the individual stuff really means nothing. You just want to help the team win … Eventually, you need to trust that what you want to do will fall into place. I’m just sticking with it right now and having fun being out with the guys and working hard.”


These excerpts are from a January 2018 article and Domi appears to have quite a grasp on the reality of his situation.




Domi is a smart player with respect for the game and a desire to win as a team. Some may hate this trade (and I definitely don’t like that some of my Galchenyuk rookie cards just bottomed out in value) but if you look at it objectively, without pledging allegiance to either player, this is a fairly even deal with the outside shot of Domi developing into a 2nd line C (or hopefully better).

Go Habs Go.

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