I was talking to this good buddy of mine from another site, who may consider blogging here one day, and he wrote this great article on the Canadiens possible scenario for trade deadline day.

Nathan Lewis, a dedicated and smart Habs fan from Ontario weighs in on what Montreal should do in a few days…and surprise surprise, it doesn’t involve Marian Hossa, Alex Tanguay or all that jazz, very interestingly, but from his viewpoint, Montreal could do fine without both of them by making one simple trade with a certain Blue team…

Enjoy, and thanks to Nathan for this piece:

MICHAEL RYDER

To get straight the point.. the guy is back. And has been for awhile, just not used to his full potential. Since the beginning of 2008, Ryder has been his old self. 17 GP, 7 goals, 4 assists, 11 PTS in just 12:00 MIN/GP. His production rate is an astonishing 18:00 MIN. If you are unaware of production rate, it’s PTS per MIN played.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not comparing Ryder to Hossa. I’m not comparing Ryder to Jokinen. Hell, I’m not even comparing Ryder to Tanguay. But when you put everything together.. I think this team is already tight as a unit. I think this team can do some serious damage in the post-season. And if Ryder is indeed back, we just picked up a player who can help us down the stretch.

If we need the extra offensive touch that we could of acquired through Hossa or Tanguay, we also have something else here in Montreal. DEPTH. Mikhail Grabovski, who is probably the best player in the AHL right now, is looking for a call-up. And who the hell in Montreal is preventing that? Bryan Smolinski? Steve Begin? Mathieu Dandenault? PLEASE!

We’ve seen the chemistry Streit and Ryder have. We need a full-blown playmaker to line-up inbetween them. Grabovski can be that guy.

Holy ****. What just happened? I’ll tell you. We gained a third offensive line.. FOR FREE!

Now, I know you’re probably thinking the line is a little weak. A lot of people don’t realize that Ryder is not a complete wuss. He will take a hit to make a play. He always finishes his checks and normally is one of the leading hitting forwards on the Canadiens. Streit also doesn’t mind taking or throwing a hit in the offensive zone.

But… if it proves to be a problem.. we could easily move Guillaume Latendresse into Streit’s slot, and move him to the fourth line. This still gives us a pretty dangerous 3rd offensive line (though less defensive minded, which Streit would bring)…

This gives us one of two options, if we really need to make a trade at the deadline. Go after a #4 defenseman… which I don’t really think we need to do. They’re aren’t going to be many defenseman on the market, so the pricing of those guys is going to be sky-high. We have seven perfectly capable defenseman, three of whom can put in monster minutes.

I say our biggest trade need is a guy who can guarantee some extra face-off wins. Ryan Johnson springs to mind (among others).

We could simply ship off; say Mathieu Dandenault + a 3rd round pick to accomplish this feet. Maybe toss in a mediocre prospect like Stewart, Milroy or Ferland, who will never get the chance to play in Montreal. They take on some extra salary but guy two guys who can play on their roster, plus a draft pick. All for a marginal 3rd liner.. but the kind of guy we could use in the playoffs, at important parts of the game.

I’d also look to pick up an enforcer, if available. A Derek Boogaard type springs to mind. Maybe toss them a Milroy or Ferland type for Boogaard. If they decline, move onto the next enforcer and try you’re luck there.

Whichever enforcer we landed, would play very few games. But they would be there for games if we felt we needed that presence. We could easily double-shift Kovalev or Ryder on the fourth line as well, when we don’t use the enforcer for every shift.

So, after reading this, I really think our team is good enough to contend. Ottawa made a move.. it hasn’t done anything for them. Detroit is old and they always fall apart in the playoffs. Dallas is our biggest competitor I think but I don’t have much faith in Turco to do much damage in the post-season.

Again, quickly, as much as I want a premier player.. the price is going to be too high to acquire most of them. And if Tanguay or Prospal are the best we can do, I’d stand still, because neither of them bring that much more goal-scoring.

So without further wait.. this would be our potential line-up.

EVEN STRENGTH

Andrei Kostitsyn - Tomas Plekanec - Alex Kovalev
Christopher Higgins - Saku Koivu - Sergei Kostitsyn
Mark Streit - Mikhail Grabovski - Michael Ryder
Guillaume Latendresse - Ryan Johnson - Maxim Lapierre
Tom Kostopolous, Steve Begin

Andrei Markov - Mike Komisarek
Roman Hamrlik - Ryan O’Byrne
Josh Gorges - Francis Bouillon
Patrice Brisebois

Cristobal Huet
Carey Price

POWERPLAY

Andrei Kostitsyn - Tomas Plekanec - Alex Kovalev
Andrei Markov - Mark Streit

Chris Higgins - Saku Koivu - Michael Ryder
Roman Hamrlik - Sergei Kostitsyn

PENALTY-KILL (5 on 4)
Ryan Johnson - Mark Streit
Andrei Markov - Mike Komisarek

Tomas Plekanec - Alex Kovalev
Roman Hamrlik - Ryan O’Byrne

Saku Koivu - Christopher Higgins
Josh Gorges - Francis Bouillon

PENALTY-KILL (5 on 3)

Ryan Johnson
Andrei Markov - Mike Komisarek

Tomas Plekanec
Roman Hamrlik - Andrei Markov

Christopher Higgins
Roman Hamrlik - Mike Komisarek

Mark Streit
Andrei Markov - Josh Gorges

-Nathan Lewis