Lehkonen is one of the most hard-working and most underrated penalty killers in the league. Habs pass bc guys like him win in the playoffs

I don’t see Montreal interested in that trades lehkonen is like nuke light with how good defensively he is

Would love the deal but don’t see the draw for Montreal

Yeah I know the Avs analytics staff are very high on him. I'd love to have a 3rd line of Nichuskin -- Jost -- Lehkonen. They might not score a lot, but neither will the other teams top 2 lines against that line.

What would it take on top of Compher to make this viable?

On paper the deal is fair, but I don't think Habs make the move.

Lehkonen is highly appreciated for his defensive work and versatility and I dont see Bergy messing with the chemistry for a lateral move.

If Compher was a true established center, I would give it a second though, but I doubt it.

Now if you take Drouin of the books for Compher...

Drouin would be an upgrade on Compher offensively, but for an additional $2m for 2 years there's a lot of risk there for Colorado.

The Avs system is also built around forwards backchecking well, and Drouin's underlying metrics are bad.

Montreal would need to retain a big portion of Drouin's salary to make that even worth thinking about for Sakic.

Back to Lehkonen, what would Avs have to add to make it viable to swap Lehkonen and Compher?

Probably Compher + Beaucage vs Lehky
I wouldn’t do it but probably a couple Habs fans would

I'd do that. Beaucage's skating probably will never work in Colorado but he could work elsewhere on teams that don't focus on transition play as much.

I agree some retained salary would need to happen for Drouin.

As for Lehky /Compher, Better for Montreal to just go after Dvorak or something. Now if Colorado want to overpay (Beaucage?) MTL would need to consider it but I don't see Sakic doing that for a bottom 6 foward.

I dont think theres realistically a deal that makes sense from Montreal's end that involves Compher. Hes not a material upgrade on most of the habs wingers and that 1.2 million price gap between him and lehkonen doesnt do much to just the difference in skill.

Honestly I think if Montreal was looking to trade Lehk it would either be as part of a deal for a much bigger asset than compher, a downgrade in price point, or a futures deal.

If Compher were better in the dot it would probably be close enough value wise. As it is, Compher isn't really a better option than Evans, especially taking salary into account.

I agree.

It's a matter of evaluating if Compher can be a middle 6 center. Some people see it, most dont.