NHL Rumors: Montreal Canadiens – A Conor Garland Broker, and Joel Armia

Canadiens Looking To Shed Joel Armia‘s Salary

Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period: As Pagnotta tweeted out over the weekend, the Canadiens recalled Joel Armia from the AHL. Montreal tried to trade this player in the offseason as documented on NHLRumors.com.

Montreal was trying to shed cap space. One of the contracts they want to move is Joel Armia. Armia has a year left on a deal that carries an annual average value of $3.4 million. Though it was unclear if the Canadiens were going to get much value for him, trade talks for the forward have picked up again this week.

Montreal Canadiens Could Broker A Conor Garland Trade Potentially Involving Joel Armia

Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on his weekly radio spot on TSN Radio and was asked about the latest on Armia and where things progressed.

** NHLRumors.com Transcription

Host: “And anything more to what you tweeted over the weekend about Joel Armia in a potential move at some point?”

Pagnotta: “I suspect those conversations will continue this week. I do know one team that they had spoken to were the Vancouver Canucks.

And I suspect that, well I don’t suspect, I’m led to believe that Connor Garland was part of those discussions. Although I do not believe that Garland’s final spot would be Montreal. I think there was some word coming out last week, that there may be a third team that could get involved in the Conor Garland discussions and not necessarily from a salary retention perspective but maybe taking on a contract.

I believe the Canadiens are one of the teams. I think San Jose is also in that mix, as that third-party team which the Canadians have done really well, in the last, you know, year or so, but I do know there were some talks with Vancouver. I don’t know where those have progressed to this point.

But I do suspect that the Habs will try to carry out those conversations, not just with Vancouver but also with a couple of other teams. As this week kind of progresses.”