First, Brian Flynn gets dumped in the lead-up to the draft for futures in order to create roster space, since they have so many 4th liners and Flynn is the least gritty among them. Caps could use a speedy, cheap, depth forward on an expiring contract for their next cup run.
A few RFAs get resigned to 2-way deals, intended for St John's, like longtime AHL captain Gabriel Dumont, and guys like Daren Dietz and Morgan Ellis.
At the draft, Desharnais' tenure comes to an end in Montreal, as he just doesn't fit with the other centre positions pretty much a lock. They move him and a third to Arizona for one of the Coyote's 2nds and a thrown-in pick, and thus Habs have 3 high-end 2nd round picks (37, 39, 45). Coyotes get a cheap-ish 2nd line centre under contract who can produce with better wingers than he had in Montreal. A salary dump for Montreal.
During the draft, the Habs try and fail to move up in the draft to get Pierre-Luc Dubois. In the end, they have to settle for staying at 9th and they take the best defender, in this case Sergeychev (toss up between he and Chychuryn, but they go with the Russian).
Despite failing to land a top-end, local prospect in Dubois, the Habs set their sites on landing the 2nd best francophone forward available, and they send 2 of their 2nd round picks along with prospect Brett Lernout to Florida for their 1st round pick at #23, and snag Julien Gauthier, getting a big, and local, power forward with a ton of potential. Also serves as an important media coup. Florida already has a ton of top, young talent and opt for diversity instead of targeting one player. Lernoutt is a long-shot prospect but could emerge to be a physical defenceman like Gudbranson for the Panthers. Habs also grab defenseman Frederic Allard with their remaining 2nd round pick, another local prospect.
Free agency hits and more than anything, Habs need at least 1 top 6 winger, if not 2, to improve very much in 2016/2017. I assume they will strike out on the top free agents this year like Okposo and Ladd, but land David Perron, who is in the 2nd tier, not quite as expensive, a local boy, has some size, is still just 28, and is a major upgrade on the failed Semin & Kassian experiments. Dale Weise comes back as a 3rd liner since he has had some success in Montreal and fits the teams needs of adding size, speed, and depth on the wings. Mike Brown gets a 1 year to sit in the stands and eat hot dogs and come in to fight when they play Ottawa or Boston. Also allows prospects like McCarron, Hudon, DLR, and Sherback to play big minutes in the AHL instead of being benchwarmers in Montreal.
I assume that Sergaychev and Gauthier come in with great training camps and look good in the pre-season, but are ultimately assigned back to the minors for more seasoning.
Sure, he'd essentially replace Tanguay. He's expensive enough to help them get to the cap limit, and cheap enough not to break the bank for the Coyotes. A decent player, with limitations. Montreal may get shafted by Florida, as Tallon is a much better GM than Bergevin, but Montreal will take that risk to get a high-end francophone scoring talent. How could it possibly go wrong?
DD and Eller make the same money. But Eller scores 0.3 per game overall, has very few assists for a center, minus -33, 301 PIM. DD scores 0.6, distributes puck better, plus +31, 130 PIM and is UFA next year.
With Eller traded now and DD maybe for a pick before his contract runs out , MTL gets the cap space they will need for Galchenyuk and Beaulieu next year.
Other than that, this is the best line up I've seen.
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