A choice made by Kent Hughes in the last few hours, just before the trade deadline, has just given us a serious hint.

As wisely pointed out by Félix Forget of DansLesCoulisses, the Canadiens only brought six defensemen for their long road trip out West.

This decision by Kent Hughes provides a strong indication of his intentions regarding a potential trade involving David Savard.

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A choice by Kent Hughes that seems to show David Savard will not be traded

While the team is currently in Edmonton (before heading to Calgary, Vancouver, and Seattle), only six defensemen are traveling with the team.

Of course, things can change quickly, but you don’t have to be an expert to see that if Kent Hughes were about to trade David Savard, he would have brought a seventh defenseman on the trip.

“In the Canadiens’ case, there are only six healthy defensemen who made the trip. […]

And that becomes particularly interesting when you consider that among those six defensemen is Savard.. who is at the center of trade rumors.”

Félix Forget

We’re not saying this 100% confirms that David Savard won’t be traded, but it certainly gives us an interesting clue. At the very least, we can say that the Canadiens are not currently acting like a team preparing to trade a defenseman.

Far from it!

This is definitely a situation to monitor in the coming hours for the Montreal Canadiens. But if I had to make a prediction, I’d say Savard will not be traded, which makes sense, considering he would only fetch a third- or fourth-round draft pick in return.