I'd do this in a heart beat.

I agree with your Beaulieu assessment. Mark my words he'll never be more then pretty much what he is right now. Trade him while his value is as high is it probably will be.

Gunnarsson is a consistent and quiet 2/3 LD that is proven, but he still fights for ice time with more physical options on STL's D. I would hope that STL protects Edmundson (and Bouwmeester and Pietrangelo), so Gunnarsson may be expendable. Relatively friendly cap hit of 2.9M. Probably costs a 2nd or 3rd unless there's a prospect that GM Armstrong really liked.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree re Gunnarsson. Need a higher profile guy, logging big minutes and putting up minimum 30/35 points. Beaulieu is proven enough at a young age to be a 20 point guy, stands up for teammates, and decent in defensive zone. He's a very useful player, but just based on Habs needs at the moment, something more is needed.

That's fair. Gunny is about the furthest thing from game changer. Maybe NSH will shuffle things before the expansion and Ekholm would be available. He sounds like what you're asking for.

Great trade.

I would keep beaulieu, I think if he played with weber, we would realize he's the habs most dynamic defenseman offensively. Markov is the best offensive dman, but beaulieu is a guy who can get the puck in his own end and take it all the way to the other end of the ice. I think he would compliment weber really well and they'd provide a lot more offense than the weber-emelin combo currently is. They'd give up some more goals but recently it's been offensive struggles plaguing the team.

As for losing emelin, that's the reality of the expansion draft. It sucks, but Sergachev will have a good shot at making the team next year and should help the depth on the left side so I'm not really worried about next year at all.

Disagree. Beaulieu shows small flashes of brilliance from time to time but most of the time he looks confused in the offensive zone. His shot isn't that good. His passes aren't that crisp. His offensive instinct is bad. If Beaulieu was on a breakaway he wouldn't know what to do. His best attribute is skating. Great skater. Thing is if that is your only good atribute then your able to play bottom pairing minutes. If you play above that, you need more then just skating and Im convinced Beaulieu will never be more then a smooth skating dman. He reminds me of Petry but with less strength and defensive awareness. Petry is top 4 at best. Beaulieu is also. More times then not he's a bottom pairing though.

I'll agree to disagree with you F50marco. We just see different things in the player. What I see is a young d-man who is just coming into his own and in my mind he's without a doubt a top 4. When markov went down, beaulieu's ice time went up and so did his production (about 0.5 pts/game).

I will agree with your comparison to Petry but the thing is, Petry cost the team 5.5mil a year (and picks) to bring in because he was a UFA. Beaulieu is an RFA and the team should be able to resign him to a very affordable contract, hopefully long term. That would make Beaulieu an asset.

I hated the Beaulieu-Petry pairing. They are similar players and are both prone to making some bone headed mistakes once in a while. If beaulieu was with weber he'd have somebody to cover his back, and weber would have a better skating D with him to generate more offense.

Anyways, that's my take on beaulieu.

Edit:
Just to add some stats to this. Weber's GF% is 60% this year. With emelin he is 53.8% and with Beaulieu he is 71.4%.

Said defenceman needs to be:

1. A certain upgrade on Beaulieu, not only in the future, TODAY! So a Shea Theodore, etc. won't do.
2. So point #2 goes without saying, needs to be a good two-way d-man that's proven he can handle 22+mins on average, not here and there.
3. Needs to be available. Maybe the team is willing to move a good d-man to upgrade at forward.
4. Needs to fit under Montreal's salary cap when all is said and done. So Beaulieu and a pick/prospect won't do it. Not only do you have to give talent to get talent, you have to give salary to take on salary.

If MB is serious about a puck moving LD to play with Weber and be there when Markov is gone, it might cost Gallagher. I know you guys don't want to hear it but that's just how it is.

You're spot on. The real question is what D are available that are enough of an upgrade over Beaulieu that it's worth paying the price for? If you ask me, I don't think there are any.

The closest I can think of are Fowler (Anaheim doesn't really want to move him, not pre-deadline... but maybe), Muzzin (after two 40pts seasons, having an off year) or Martinez (lefty but tends to play RD, 29 years old).