When Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin traded his captain to the Vegas Golden Knights, he wanted Cody Glass to be part of the return, but Vegas GM George McPhee wouldn’t have it and sent Nick Suzuki to Montreal instead.
The Trade
The full trade was the disgruntled Max Pacioretty in return for a 2019 second-round pick, prospect Suzuki and Tomas Tatar. The latter being a throw in to clear some cap space in Vegas, as least that’s how he was seen originally.
Bergevin moved the second-round pick for picks 64th and 126th at the 2019 draft which turned into Mattias Norlinder and Jacob LeGuerrier. The former was not tendered a qualifying offer this Summer and therefore became a free agent while the latter is no longer part of the organization (he was diagnosed with myocarditis, a condition that causes the heart muscle to become inflamed and affects the organ’s ability to pump blood. He developed this health issue following a bout with COVID-19). Trading for picks is always hit and miss and this time it was a miss, which I’m sure Bergevin had no issue living with considering how the rest of the trade turned out.
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The Aftermath
As for Tatar, as soon as he arrived in Montreal he started looking like the player who had been successful in Detroit and found a spot on the Canadiens’ first line, becoming the perfect complement to Phillip Danault and Brendan Gallagher. Say what you will about that line, but at five-on-five it was one of the league’s best units in controlling percentage of shots.
He had the best two seasons of his career in his first couple of years in Montreal putting up 58 and 61 points. Unfortunately, things went south in his third year and he was a healthy scratch for most of the Canadiens’ run to the 2021 Stanley Cup final. Still, considering he wasn’t the main piece of the deal, Bergevin made out like a bandit on that one.
Funnily enough though, the best player the Canadiens’ got in the deal was the one they didn’t want. Suzuki graduated to the NHL a year after being traded and took to it like a fish to water. In his first two seasons, he posted 41 points (although that was over 56 games only in 2020-2021 thanks to the pandemic shortened season) and that was largely due to being sheltered a bit and not getting enough ice-time, Daunault being the most trusted pivot back then.
As soon as Danault left for Los Angeles, Suzuki’s ice-time, duties and opportunities increased. As a result his point total shot up to…