There is no doubt that along with Mark Giordano in Seattle, Canadiens’ defenseman Ben Chiarot will be drawing a lot of interest from now onto trade deadline on March 21st. Giordano (38) is also a pending UFA but he carries a cap hit of $6.75 million. His modified no-trade clause states that he must provide a 19-teams no-trade list.
At the intermission of the broadcast of the game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers, NHL Insider Pierre LeBrun stated that the Panthers will be taking a run at Canadiens’ pending UFA Ben Chiarot. And this could happen sooner rather than later.
Aaron Ekblad (25:27 TOI/GP) and MacKenzie Weegar (23:49) are the Panthers’ top-2 right-handed defensemen while one the left side, only Gustav Forsling (21:12) plays over 20 minutes a night.
Florida trails the Tampa Bay Lightning by one point and have a game in hand on the Bolts for top spot in the Atlantic division. They have gone through their COVID spread and players are pretty much all back.
LeBrun feels like there will be at least six teams with serious interest for Chiarot and that the price won’t come cheap. At $3.5 million and with most of it paid by trade deadline, he is a very affordable option for the top-4 of any contenders, which LeBrun feels the Panthers are. Further, Chiarot has proven just a few months ago how much he can be relied on for playoffs’ hockey.
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