Habs unload Bourque, land D-man Allen
TRADE: Exchange allows Canadiens to rid themselves of forward’s $3.3-million cap hit for next season
MONTREAL —Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin hit the trifecta on Thursday.
Bergevin added size, character and experience to the defensive corps with the acquisition of Bryan Allen from the Anaheim Ducks in return for Rene Bourque.
With the trade, the GM bought development time for young defencemen Nathan Beaulieu and Jarred Tinordi, who will now be logging lots of ice time with the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs. And Bergevin managed to remove Bourque’s $3.3-million US salary-cap hit from the books for the 2015-16 season.
Allen, who will join the Canadiens in Boston on Friday, has played 716 NHL games for four teams: Vancouver, Florida, Carolina and the Ducks.
Allen has good size at 6-foot-5 and 223 pounds and has 29 goals and 106 assists, along with a plus-28, for his career. He missed the beginning of this season with a lowerbody injury and had one assist in six games with the Ducks.
“He’s a big kid, stay-at-home defenceman,” Bergevin said. “He’s not a kid that’s going to run numbers. Penalty-killing, probably, play against the other team’s bigger players and, again, that’s going to be up to Mike (Michel Therrien) and his coaching staff to see what’s the best fit for him in our hockey club. But he brings character and grit to our team, and size on the back end.”
Allen, who is in the final season of a three-year, $10.5-million US deal with a $3.5-million cap hit, is 34, but Therrien values experience.
The trade gives Bourque an opportunity to revive his career. He’s returning to the Western Conference, where he enjoyed some success with Chicago and Calgary. Bourque had a strong performance in the playoffs last season, with eight goals and three assists in 17 games, but he didn’t carry any momentum into the regular season.
He had two assists and was a minus-9 in 13 games when the Canadiens sent him to Hamilton this month.
“He wasn’t doing cartwheels on the way down (to Hamilton),” Bergevin said.
The GM went on to say that Bourque understood the decision and went to Hamilton with the intention of working his way back to the NHL.
“He knew he could have done better. He knew that he had to step up his game,” Bergevin said. “He didn’t blame anybody but himself, and I think for me that was a good sign. He didn’t challenge me.”
Asked about Bourque’s reaction to the trade, Bergevin said: “When I did make the trade, he didn’t do cartwheels, he did somersaults when he went. Like I said, he went from Hamilton, which is not the NHL, to Anaheim. He’s going to a place where I think he could produce, and I hope he does.”
Bergevin has shown to be a master at getting rid of unsustainable contracts, beginning with Erik Cole during the 2012-13 season and this year with Daniel Briere, Travis Moen and now Bourque. The GM also used compliance buyouts to drop Tomas Kaberle and Scott Gomez before the start of the 2012-13 season.
The Habs currently have $1.469 million in unused cap space.