Trevor Zegras seen meeting with head coach from Eastern conference

Many teams across the National Hockey League are still exploring the possibility of acquiring Anaheim Ducks star forward Trevor Zegras and one of those teams is the Montreal Canadiens. While some insiders claim the acquisition price could prove too expensive and the timing doesn’t seem right, a report from FM93 revealed on Tuesday that Habs coach Martin St. Louis was seen with Zegras in New York. Host Jerome Landry explained how St. Louis was seen yesterday in New York, in a gym frequented by several NHL players, and that amongst them, there was Zegras.

Landry added that the Canadiens’ bench boss spent most of his time speaking with the Ducks’ forward and would even have left with him afterwards as if they were old friends.

This is translated from French as Landry reported on the air of FM93:

“Martin St. Louis was seen in New York yesterday, in a gym frequented by several players from the NHL. Sources told me that the guy he talked to the most is called Trevor Zegras. And there, they saw each other in the gym, they chatted, then they left together. I don’t know if they went to eat, but Martin St-Louis and Trevor Zegras left the gym together, arm in arm, buddy-buddy…But look, maybe that doesn’t mean anything either!”

Zegras has two years left on his contract with an AAV of $5.75 million, and it would indeed indicate that the Canadiens would have to offer a significant return without even knowing if the top forward would fit well within the Montreal system.
It’s been a rough couple of seasons in Anaheim for the first round pick, who was involved in a contentious contract negotiation, saw his best friend traded off the team, and even had an off-ice dispute with his team all in a very short window of time relatively speaking.

According to Arpon Basu of The Athletic, a trade for Zegras, or even for another possible target in Carolina Hurricanes’ Martin Necas, is unlikely to take place this summer in Montreal. The insider claims that it could be another offseason of wait-and-see instead of the big splashes fans are hoping to see, a bit in the same way things unfolded last summer with a potential blockbuster trade for Pierre-Luc Dubois.

The high asking price and the high level of risks here will probably be too much of a hurdle for the Canadiens to pull the trigger on a Zegras trade, but that did not stop St. Louis from going all-in to see if the young forward would be a fit with the Habs.