- Chris Kreider cleared unconditional waivers Thursday and is a free agent after Anaheim terminated his contract
- Renaud Lavoie says Montreal is the one team where Kreider would not feel out of place
- Read below for the night Kreider asked Canadiens players to trade for him
Chris Kreider may have tipped his hand two years ago.
Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports dug up an old story this week while making the case that the newest free agent on the market belongs in Montreal. Things were coming apart for Kreider in New York at the time, and during a game against the Canadiens he skated past their bench and put a question to the players sitting on it.
“Can you, please, trade for me?”
Lavoie laid the full argument out in a column Friday, and he did not bother hedging about where the 35-year-old winger fits best:
His summary of the whole debate came down to one line.
“If Chris Kreider joins the Canadiens, he’ll make the team better. So tell me with a straight face why they should pass on him?”
The anecdote matters now because Kreider is actually available. Anaheim placed him on unconditional waivers on Sept. 9 for the purpose of terminating his contract, which Elliotte Friedman confirmed that afternoon:
He cleared a day later. The termination handed a cash-strapped Ducks front office $6.5 million in room, and Kreider walked away from the $4 million he was still owed:
Three familiar faces wait for him in Montreal. Jeff Gorton signed Kreider to his big Rangers deal, Martin St-Louis trained with him, and Jim Ramsay spent nearly three decades as the Rangers head athletic trainer before joining the Canadiens in 2023. Lavoie has stressed on air how much those three men mean to him.
Production is not the problem. Kreider put up 22 goals and 50 points in 75 games for Anaheim last season, then added two goals and seven points in 12 playoff games before the Ducks went out in the second round. Career totals sit at 348 goals and 632 points across 958 games.
Montreal is not the only name in play. Elliotte Friedman has pointed to Boston as Kreider’s preferred landing spot, and the Bruins sit a short drive from his hometown of Boxford, Massachusetts.
One piece of history works against the fit. Kreider ran into Carey Price in the 2014 Eastern Conference Final and knocked the goalie out of the series, a collision plenty of Habs fans still bring up. Lavoie doubts it matters in the room now, since none of those players remain.
Canadiens training camp opens Sept. 16. Kent Hughes has four days to decide whether he wants to find out if Kreider meant it.
