The Montreal Canadiens are not going to make the 2020 playoffs. They are eight points out with 20 games to play and just don’t have the time or the team to make up the difference. This makes it easy for them to decide to sell any pending unrestricted free agents. They already started by sending Marco Scandella to the St. Louis Blues.
Ilya Kovalchuk and Nate Thompson should be the next one’s out the door. That’s the easy part. Trading away veteran players that are unlikely to be back after July 1st and acquiring draft picks is a no-brainer for a struggling team.