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NHL Trade Rumors: Montreal Canadiens pursuit of $6,000,000 Martin Necas shut down due to team's "bad blood"
Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Necas has been drawing attention from all around the league including the Montreal Canadiens. However, it appears that the Habs will be unable to acquire the player anytime soon due to the offer sheet history between the two teams.
Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reported that the Montreal Canadiens have shown interest in trading for Necas. The Canes forward has completed the last season of his two-year/ $6,000,000 contract with the team and will become a restricted free agent this summer.
Despite the Canadiens' strong interest in Necas, a trade between Montreal and Carolina seems highly unlikely, according to the former Stanley Cup champion.
“Many clubs are calling the Carolina Hurricanes to inquire about trading for forward Martin Necas, including the Montreal Canadiens,” Kypreos wrote for the Toronto Star. “As much as the Habs love the player, there seems to be zero chance of a trade with Montreal considering the bad blood over the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet in 2021.”
This is due to lingering animosity from the 2021 incident when Montreal extended an offer sheet to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, which Carolina matched. That led to tensions between the two clubs and the said "bad blood" over the offer sheet situation now makes a trade between the Canadiens and the Hurricanes improbable.
Meanwhile, according to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, the Hurricanes will only consider moving Necas if they receive significant star power in return. His name is in trade talks primarily due to his dissatisfaction with his role in the team and the slight mismatch between his playing style and the Hurricanes' overall game.
"They consider Necas a really good player and I think they recognize that just because he may not necessarily be built for offense the way Brind'Amour plays it, they recognize that if he goes somewhere else, where he's allowed to rush the puck a bit more and it's a bit more built into the offense, he's going to go to another level and that's the way they see a trade," Friedman said on his 32 Thoughts podcast.
Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes’ offer sheet “bad blood” explained
The bad blood between the Habs and the Canes stems from a couple of offer sheet incidents. In 2019, the Canadiens made a bold move by extending a five-year, $42.27 million offer sheet to restricted free agent Sebastian Aho from the Hurricanes. The Hurricanes, however, matched the offer sheet, retaining Aho but were not happy at the Canadiens’ attempt to poach their star player.
Two summers later, the Hurricanes extended a one-year, $6.1 million offer sheet to Canadiens’ restricted free agent Jesperi Kotkaniemi in 2021.
However, the Canadiens chose not to match the offer, allowing Kotkaniemi to join the Hurricanes while they received Carolina's first and third-round picks in 2022.
Given the past animosity between the two teams over losing players to offer sheets, it seems unlikely that fans will welcome soon-to-be restricted free agent Martin Necas making a move to Montreal anytime soon.
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