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When Geoff Molson decided it was time for the Montreal Canadiens to make some significant changes and fired Marc Bergevin, Habs fans were anxious to see who would take over and how they would handle the rebuild. When Kent Hughes was introduced as the new GM, some worried that he didn’t have the experience necessary to handle Sainte-Flanelle’s rebuild since he had never been an executive in the NHL.

He did have plenty of other experience however, having been a player's agent for years and having been on the opposite side of the battle line, and while some wondered if his old opponents would have some resentment from past negotiations, it soon became apparent that Hughes hadn’t made any enemy in his former life as a player’s agent.

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He hit the ground running, trading away the likes of Tyler Toffoli to the Calgary Flames and Arturri Lehkonen to the Colorado Avalanche and replacing coach Dominique Ducharme with unproven (at least behind the bench) Martin St-Louis.

In his first offseason at the helm, Hughes heard the Flames were looking to unload Sean Monahan’s contract. Since the Canadiens had plenty of cap space to work with, the former agent smelled an opportunity and picked up the phone to call Flames’ GM Brad Treliving, whom he had dealt Toffoli to.

In the end, he parleyed his cap space into Monahan and a conditional first-round pick at the 2025 NHL Draft. Calgary needed the cap space because they had decided to sign Nazem Kadri to a seven-year contract and figured it was time to move on from Monahan, whose injuries had plagued them.

The center became an essential part of the team and a good leader for the young Canadiens to look up to. Unfortunately, he was injured again and was therefore limited to only 25 games in which he put up 17 points. With his contract up, the center could have tested the market, but he decided to sign for one year with the Canadiens, who had given him a chance when the Flames decided to move on.

In his second season with the team, he scored 35 points in 49 games. With the Canadiens fast heading for elimination, Hughes traded the veteran forward to the Winnipeg Jets for a first-round pick at the 2024 draft and a conditional third-round pick at the 2027 draft.

At the 2024 draft, the pick Monahan allowed the Canadiens to obtain was traded to the Los Angeles Kings to move up in the draft order and pick Michael Hage 21st overall. Fast forward a year later to the 2025 draft, and the pick that Calgary initially sent to Montreal, which had become the 16th selection overall, was moved to the New York Islanders along with the Canadians’ pick, the 17th overall, and young forward Emil Heineman in return for an experienced yet young right-shot defenseman, Noah Dobson.

Nearly three years after the initial deal with the Flames, it’s still paying dividends. Of course, it’s yet unknown how Hage will do in the NHL, but he’s about to embark on his sophomore season in the NCAA after winning the Big-10 Rookie of the Year award last season when he posted 34 points in 33 games. He’s also put himself in a good position to represent Canada at the upcoming World Junior Championships.

As for Dobson, he’s the highest-paid active player on the Canadiens’ roster with a $9.5 AAV, and he is expected to play a massive role for the Habs this season. Furthermore, his arrival has made Logan Mailloux expendable, allowing Hughes to flip him to the St. Louis Blues for some much-needed help up front. Hughes inherited a prospect cupboard stacked with promising blueliners, but he’s not hesitant to tap into it to address deficiencies in other areas.

With Hughes, the Canadiens have got a GM who not only sees the big picture, but also appears to be playing two or three turns ahead of everyone else. Jeff Gorton and Hughes said they wanted to build a perennial contender, and looking at them go, that’s precisely what they’re in the process of doing. By letting Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak walk, the team became a little bit more theirs and a little less Bergevin’s work.

As the years pass, contracts signed by the former GM will expire, and it will be interesting to see how they handle those players, but so far, they’ve done impressive work, and the Monahan deal is right up there in the list of their most significant accomplishments.

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Top Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim might be the best rearguard on his team, but his ranking amongst his peers around the NHL isn't nearly as flattering.

In Bleacher Report's latest ranking of each NHL team's best defenseman, Sanheim, 29, representing the Flyers, ranked just 29th, ahead of only the likes of Dmitry Orlov (32nd, San Jose), Alex Vlasic (31st, Chicago), and Adam Pelech (30th, New York Islanders).

Even more curious is that names like Erik Karlsson, Morgan Rielly, Vince Dunn, and Cam Fowler were ahead of Sanheim, and many would argue that Fowler isn't even the best defensemen on his team.

That honor belongs to hulking right-shot defenseman Colton Parayko, who represented Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off last winter alongside Sanheim and new Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet.

Rielly, and Karlsson, especially, are shadows of the players they once were, reaching the peaks of their offensive production seasons ago.

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Sanheim, too, had a down year offensively, but much of that can be attributed to a lack of power play time, lots of difficult defensive minutes, and an overall lackluster Flyers team that failed time and time again to live up to expectations, even after the surprise addition of Matvei Michkov last summer.

The rangy Flyers defenseman was always going to be a good No. 2 or great No. 3 on a Stanley Cup contender, which makes him no different than a Dunn, a Parayko, or even a Dougie Hamilton.

But, given how poor the Flyers were for swaths of last season, Sanheim unfortunately did not receive the respect he's earned over the last few seasons.

It's not the first instance of such a snub this offseason, either.

Flyers Duo Snubbed from 'NHL 2030' Top 30 Players ListThe Philadelphia Flyers are certainly hoping that young stars Matvei Michkov and Porter Martone will be top 30 NHL players five years from now, but there are some who would push back on that.

Just a few days prior, Bleacher Report also bizarrely excluded top Flyers prospect Porter Martone from their list of the 10 most exciting prospects playing in the NCAA this upcoming season.

Based on first-hand knowledge, this will only be added motivation for a scrappy Flyers team looking to wash away a bad 2024-25 season, but the unusually strong disrespect has been a strange trend to follow this month.

Sanheim scored eight goals, 22 assists, and 30 points for the Flyers last season, posting a -6 rating while averaging a career-high 24:30 of ice time.

On Monday, Bleacher Report put out a ranking of each team in the NHL’s number one defenseman. For the Chicago Blackhawks, they consider Alex Vlasic to be the number one and ranked him as the 31st best in the NHL. This is not saying he’s the 31st best defenseman; this is saying that he’s the 31st best number one. 

Vlasic is a very good player. Although this feels a little disrespectful, especially since he was so good in 2024-25, it may be closer to reality than not because of how many good number one defensemen there are in the NHL. 

B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) on XRanking each team’s best defenseman, league-wide, via B/R’s Adam Gretz 👀 Link to full breakdown 🔗: https://t.co/XHIf2acqAF

Vlasic’s a great player in his end, but he doesn’t produce points at a high rate, so he isn’t even a prototypical number one. Not every team, or even close to every team, has a guy who is elite in all three zones. 

Listing him as the number one is a product of what happened in 2024-25. The Blackhawks traded Seth Jones to the Florida Panthers, and that left Connor Murphy and Alec Martinez behind on a blue line with a bunch of players under 24. 

Martinez has since retired, and Vlasic is already better than Murphy. However, is he the true number one on the team? Artyom Levshunov and Sam Rinzel would like a word. 

Each of them made their NHL debut in the final quarter of the season last year. Levshunov, who Chicago took second overall in the 2024 NHL Draft, played 18 games. He had six assists during that time, while having some ups and downs defensively. 

Rinzel, who was taken by the Blackhawks 25th overall in 2022, played in nine games after his season with the University of Minnesota ended. In those 9 contests, Rinzel collected six assists. 

By the time the season was over, all three of Rinzel, Levshunov, and Vlasic were playing big minutes. None of them looked out of place doing it, even when they were against some of the top offensive players in the world. 

There are sure to be slumps for them all as they continue to evolve in the best league in the world, but they all possess tremendous skill that can help them make an impact at the NHL level. 

So, if the question is, who is the number one defenseman on the team right now? The best answer is that these three have the inside track to take that role on. They all may share it throughout the year, which is probably best for a young team like the Chicago Blackhawks. 

If any of them has the highest ceiling, based on what we’ve seen so far, it has to be Rinzel. He looked incredible in his stint with Chicago. However, he must come into 2025-26 and stay at that level while progressively getting better. Levshunov, being a second overall pick, has to be in the mix for the lead as well because of his pedigree. 

If Vlasic turns out to be a number three, Chicago’s blue line will be in good shape. Other players like Ethan del Mastro, Nolan Allan, Louis Crevier, and Kevin Korchinski, amongst others, are looking to make an impact in the lineup as well. 

The Blackhawks' rebuild has been slow and at times painful, but they've been great at adding defensemen who look the part of NHL regulars. That is the first step in becoming a contender. 

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