The Montreal Canadiens have completed a pre-draft trade with the Colorado Avalanche to acquire forward Alex Newhook.
Heading back the other way will be Montreal’s 31st overall selection in this year’s draft (previously acquired from Florida), the 37th overall pick, and defenseman Gianni Fairbrother.
Newhook, 22, recently completed a full 82 game NHL campaign with the Avs in which he scored 14 goals and added 16 assists. A former 1st round (16th overall) pick from the 2019 draft, the 5’10” centerman helped guide Colorado to their first Stanley Cup championship in 20 years back in 2021-22.
The St. John’s native has had an interesting path to the NHL. He appeared in 1 game for the Aurora Tigers of the OJHL back in 2016-17, before breaking out with the Victoria Grizzlies of the BCHL. In 2018-19 he amassed 38 goals, and 64 assists for 102pts in only 53 games.
He carried this momentum forward into his collegiate career where he had a standout freshman campaign where he took home Hockey East All-Rookie Team, Rookie of the Year, Second All-Star Team, New England D1 All-Star, New England Rookie of the Year, and the Tim Taylor award (given out annually to the nation’s most outstanding freshman).
He would suffer an injury the following season, limiting him to just 12 games, but still managed to put up 16pts (7G, 9A) before joining the Avalanche later that year. Newhook is a pending RFA and will need to negotiate a new contract with Kent Huges & co. once he gets settled in with his new team.
Fairbrother is a 6’ 204lbs left shot defenseman, whom the Habs took in the 3rd round (77th overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. The 22 year old has yet to appear in an NHL contest, but has put up 1G, 7A across two AHL campaigns, one of which was split between the Laval Rocket and the Everett Silvertips of the WHL.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Ken Lund. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.