Cowan: Noah Dobson a significant piece in Canadiens' rebuilding plan
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The pieces are starting to fall into place nicely for the Canadiens in this rebuilding plan.
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General manager Kent Hughes added a huge chunk on Friday when he acquired 25-year-old defenceman Noah Dobson from the New York Islanders in exchange for the 16th and 17th overall picks at the NHL Draft and 23-year-old forward Emil Heineman.
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Coming off a season in which they were the youngest team to make the playoffs in Year 3 of the rebuild, Hughes has now reached a point where he is no longer making trades to acquire draft picks and prospects. Instead, he's giving those things up to acquire a proven NHL player like Dobson, who is in the prime of his career.
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Dobson said the success the Canadiens had last season under head coach Martin St. Louis played a part in him agreeing to a new eight-year, US$76-million contract with an annual salary-cap hit of US$9.5 million. Dobson could have become a restricted free agent on July 1.
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'I think Martin St. Louis has a great reputation throughout the league as a coach and as a person and what I heard as a group is they enjoy coming to the rink every day,' Dobson said in a video conference Friday night. 'It's a fun group. It's a tight-knit group. They got a great mix of lots of young kids and veterans as well and everyone just enjoys being together as a group and they have a great time. They try and make it fun and make it exciting to go to the rink every day and, as a player, that's all you can ask for. I'm super-excited to get into that group and just get to know everyone and get settled and get comfortable.'
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Dobson is coming off what was a disappointing season for him and the Islanders, who were hit hard by injuries and missed the playoffs with a 35-35-12 record. Dobson had 10-29-39 totals in 71 games and was minus-16. But the previous season he had 10-60-70 totals in 79 games and was plus-12. The Islanders selected the Summerside, P.E.I., native with the 12th overall pick at the 2018 NHL Draft.
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'I don't want to say anything happens in phases, but I guess we spent the early part of my time here trying to accumulate assets — which for the most part were draft picks, but there were prospects,' Hughes said Friday night when asked about the acquisition of Dobson being a landmark trade in the rebuilding process. 'And then, once you go through that phase, I think you come to a time where you start to look at: OK, how are we constructing our hockey team and how do we want to play and what are the players that fit that idea, that mandate, and I think this is probably a pretty significant sign on our part that: OK, we're adding a piece from the outside. We didn't draft it and we're going to try to continue to take those next steps. I think part of it was driven by the success the team had and the desire our dressing room has to keep moving this thing forward.'
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Hughes still has much more work to do to reach management's goal of not only making the playoffs, but building a team that can be a Stanley Cup contender for several years in a row. In order to do that Hughes will have to get more offence from his top-six forwards and now he will focus on trying to do that.
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