I've been telling you since Sunday that several NHL teams are salivating at the thought of trading for disgruntled Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin. Drouin's agent went public with a trade request this past Sunday. According to Drouin's agent, he requested a trade from the lightning in November. The Lightning have not obliged to trade request as of yet. The team has sent Drouin to the AHL Syracuse where he will play in games beginning this weekend. Such a move will give Lightning GM Steve Yzerman time to sift through trade proposals that have been sent his way for Drew and
The NHL trade deadline is on February 29th and you better believe that there's a long line of teams waiting for the opportunity to make a pitch to trade for the skilled French Canadian forward who was the third overall pick in the 2013 Entry Draft out of the Halifax Mooseheads organization.
Drouin, 20, played a huge role in Halifax winning the 2013 Memorial Cup championship when he was linemates with the eventual 2013 number one overall pick in the draft Nathan MacKinnon.
TSN hockey insider Bob McKenzie was on TSN 690 in Montreal this morning and he identified Montreal is one of the many teams who would like to get their mitts on Drouin.
“There’s a lot of teams – I can count more than a dozen teams that have varying degrees of interest in Drouin. I mean, I could say the same thing about the Ottawa Senators. The Ottawa Senators aggressively would like to get Jonathan Drouin, and I don’t think they’re getting off the mark with the Tampa Bay Lightning any more than the Montreal Canadiens will.
“Now, I could be wrong on that. Here’s the thing. In order for a team like the Montreal Canadiens or the Ottawa Senators – who both could use Jonathan Drouin – in order for them to get Tampa to trade them that player within the division… In other words, Tampa is going to see Jonathan Drouin coming into their building playoffs, you name it – it’s going to be constant. In order for Tampa to live with the prospect of that, the offer that Montreal or Ottawa or any team within the Atlantic Division would have to come up with would have to be light years better than anybody else".
The compensation for Drew and will not be cheap as witnessed by the Ryan Johansen for Seth Jones trade on Wednesday night. Johansson was the fourth overall selection in the 2010 NHL draft. Jones was the fourth overall selection in the 2013 NHL draft. Drew and was the third overall pick in the 2013 NHL draft. So it appears as though the copper bowls have been set. If Montreal wants to take a shot and make a trade for Drew and they are going to have to part with a former first round forward. I cannot see Montreal trading away center Alex Galchenyuk to Tampa in exchange for Drew and because Montreal are in the process of looking for a winner who can play alongside Galchenyuk for the next 10 years in Montreal.