Canadiens: Friedman Reveals How Far Hughes Was Willing To Go

Unsurprisingly, the blockbuster was discussed at length on the latest episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast by Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas. The NHL insider confirmed that Habs GM Kent Hughes tried everything to land Marchenko:

I tried to figure out what Montreal did at the end; I heard that Montreal was trying to be really creative. I think they were trying to involve other teams. I'm not 100% sure whether they were trying to get other teams to get one of these extra Columbus guys, or whether they were trying to take a player from another team and put them in Columbus. Because I just always heard that Columbus wasn't crazy about what Montreal offered. There were some good players in there, some futures; Columbus didn't really want futures, and they just never had anything close to Knies. Like, I heard there was another player they were trying to get to Columbus from another team. I thought I knew who that guy was, but the other team has denied it, so I'm still working, Kyle, on who that guy was or who the guys were.

At this stage, this shouldn't surprise anyone. Hughes said he was very active this summer but didn't manage to close the deal on his main target. Of course, the Canadiens' GM didn't confirm who his target was, but with multiple reports identifying Marchenko as the target, it makes sense.