I'd kinda like to say that I saw this coming. The Nashville Predators dealt goaltender Devan Dubnyk to the Montreal Canadiens for future considerations, probably a conditional draft pick.
As I had noted earlier in the morning, Pekka Rinne returned to the Predators line-up and Dubnyk was made into a healthy scratch, opening up the door for a move today. Blammo! It happened.
This trade, as much as it answers the question about what the Predators were going to do with Dubnyk, it asks the question, how bad is the injury to Carey Price? You can also ask whether or not the Canadiens had enough faith in Dustin Tokarski as a back-up or did they want him to get more minutes?
Nevertheless, the Canadiens do acquire a little bit more insurance for the time being in net with Dubnyk, as he is an established NHL goaltender. In 2014, between Edmonton and Nashville, he has made 34 appearances on the ice, winning 11 games with 2 shutouts, totaling 26 points. He hasn't made the greatest impression on the two teams that he has played for in his career and he'll go to a tough goalie market in Montreal, but then the question lingers... how long will he stay there?
There is no guarantee that Dubnyk will see any minutes in Montreal, but I would think Stacey C. will have his fingers crossed down the stretch that Price cannot play much and Peter Budaj struggles, opening the door for his goalie and possibly some extra points down the stretch. Stacey finished Tuesday night in 2nd place, now 10 points out of 1st place and would sure like to see Dubnyk hit the ice for the Habs to close up that gap.
UPDATED 11:53am MT: Dubnyk has been sent down to the minors. No impact will be made to Budaj, Tokarski or Stacey's pool team.
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