This weekend, Montréal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin did two sensible things: He let the Carolina Hurricanes have Jesperi Kotkaniemi and immediately traded for Christian Dvorak.

On paper, Dvorak is a solid second-line centre who didn't have his best year last season but still played well enough on a dead-end team. A big reason for that is because his most common linemates were Lawson Crouse, who is at best a replacement-level player, and an ageing Phil Kessel. In 2019-20, Dvorak had a breakout year in large part because he played alongside Conor Garland and Taylor Hall.

Montréal is betting that they can turn him back into the kind of player you give up a conditional first- and a no-strings-attached second-round pick for. To do so, they will likely have to give him good linemates an