Quoting: EhRobin3
No, but Montreal was also without Byron and Armia who are 2 of our best Penalty killers were injured for decent durations of the season, and we added more size this offseason and a few more players who can kill penalties. if you go to the playoffs and look at the GA/60 Montreal was 9th overall but other teams played substantially more and some played less so if you look only at the 1st round they were 7th and better once they figured out the 2nd units Center
1. I'm not going to look at the playoffs due to sample size issues.
2. Byron and Armia were 4th and 5th most used forwards (TOI/GP) at 4v5 last year, suggesting that they weren't critical to the PK effort even when healthy.
3. The top-3 most used MTL forwards played nearly the full compliment of games: 71, 70 and 63, respectively, indicating that the PK was largely intact throughout the season.
4. Khaira's 2.43 GA/60 is significantly better than any of MTL's 5 PK regulars, who range from 6.89 to 8.88 GA/60.
5. Among forwards who played 90+ minutes at 4v5, Khaira's GA/60 ranked 1st in the entire league.
6. That wasn't fluke either, as evidenced by his ranking in other metrics like CA/60 (19th), FA/60 (12th), SA/60 (6th), xGA/60 (12th) and HDCA/60 (7th) among 104 forwards.
MTL's PK was below average and Khaira would be an immediate upgrade. You might dislike the trade for any number of reasons, but your PK excuse is completely illegitimate.