The Canadiens just lost another trade and fans are losing patience
Rasmus Ristolainen was almost a Canadien in March. The league is just finding out now.
Anthony Di Marco reported on Daily Faceoff that sources suggest Montreal nearly acquired the Flyers defenseman ahead of the trade deadline before the deal fell apart.
Di Marco adds the Senators have shown interest in him in the past, and the Canadiens could be an option again this summer. So the file isn't closed. It's reopened.
And here's the part that makes Montreal's deadline even more interesting in hindsight: Ristolainen wasn't the only big swing.
Reports at the time had Kent Hughes circling Matthew Knies in Toronto too. Two near-misses, one pattern. Montreal wanted to get bigger and heavier, badly.
Di Marco's full breakdown lays out the suitors, with the almost-trade detail buried in the middle like an afterthought that's anything but.
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From Matthew Knies to Ristolainen: Kent Hughes wants size
Look at Montreal's blue line and the logic writes itself. Lane Hutson just put up 78 points at age 22. Noah Dobson added 47. The puck-moving is elite.
The snarl is not. Kaiden Guhle was limited to 39 games, and behind him the physical options thin out fast.
Ristolainen is the other food group entirely. The 31-year-old is six-feet-plenty of bad intentions, finished plus-10 in 44 games, and chipped in 2 shorthanded assists working the penalty kill.
He also just played 10 playoff games for Rick Tocchet's Flyers, producing 5 points in the kind of heavy spring hockey Montreal's young defense hasn't fully experienced.
At a $5.1 million cap hit, he's not cheap. But for a team that rolled to 106 points and wants to protect Hutson through a long playoff run, the role fits like a glove.
The injury history is the catch, and it's a real one. He dressed for barely half the season. Paying full price for 44-game availability is how good ideas become bad trades.
Here's my read: this pursuit makes more sense than the Lafreniere chatter and costs less than the Larkin dream. Sometimes the boring trade is the right one.
Daniel Briere knows Montreal's number from March. The question is whether Hughes calls it in again, or whether Ottawa beats him to the phone.
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||