The Canadiens were willing to take a swing on Kirby Dach in the summer of 2022, and for a while it looked like the kind of bold move a rebuilding team should make. Now, a couple of years later, the full picture makes it much harder to defend.
Montreal’s path to Dach started on July 7, 2022, when the club sent defenseman Alexander Romanov and a 2022 fourth-round pick to the New York Islanders for the 13th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. The Canadiens didn’t stay put with that selection. They turned around and sent the 13th pick, plus a 2022 third-round pick, to the Chicago Blackhawks for Dach.
That was the bet: move on from Romanov and extra draft capital to land a 21-year-old forward who had gone third overall three years earlier. The logic was straightforward.
Montreal had a deepening group of young defensemen, while Dach still carried real upside as a former blue-chip pick who might just need a fresh start. Rather than wait on another prospect at No.
13, Kent Hughes chose the player already in the NHL and still available to be shaped.
The appeal was obvious. Dach’s size, skill and ability to shield the puck made him look like a possible top-six piece, whether down the middle or on the wing. There were moments when it was easy to picture him becoming a key offensive player for the Canadiens.
But the missing piece has been availability. Injuries have repeatedly interrupted his progress and kept him from building any real momentum. Instead of settling in as one of Montreal’s core forwards, Dach has spent much of his time with the Canadiens trying to get back on track after yet another absence.
The sting gets sharper when you follow the rest of the chain. Romanov has held down top-four minutes for the Islanders and has become a dependable NHL defenseman, even if he hasn’t turned into a star.
And the 13th overall pick that Montreal moved on from eventually became Frank Nazar, whom Chicago selected. Nazar is now 22, an increasingly important part of the Blackhawks’ young core, and he put up 41 points in 66 games during the 2025-26 season.
That doesn’t mean Montreal would have taken Nazar if it had kept the pick. Draft trades are never that neat. Still, it does underline what the Canadiens gave up to make the Dach gamble.
With hindsight, the move is easy to second-guess, but the original idea wasn’t reckless. Montreal was a rebuilding team betting on a 21-year-old with real upside, and the organization had enough depth on defense to make Romanov more movable than some others. If Dach had stayed healthy and grown into the top-six center the Canadiens were hoping for, this trade would have looked sharp.
Instead, injuries changed the story. Montreal took a swing at a talented player whose stock had slipped and hoped to unlock him.
That’s the kind of move a rebuilding club should be willing to make. This time, it just didn’t work out.
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