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Pierre-Luc Dubois: Montreal was in the mix for 2024, believes Elliotte Friedman

EDMONTON, CANADA - APRIL 24: Pierre-Luc Dubois #80 of the Los Angeles Kings skates against the Edmonton Oilers in Game Two of the First Round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Rogers Place on April 24, 2024, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

Pierre-Luc Dubois has been the talk of the town recently.

The Los Angeles Kings were so disappointed with what Dubois brought to the table in 2023-2024 that they decided he wouldn’t be back in 2024-2025, plain and simple.

Not everyone seems to know, but yes, he’s been traded.

Is that why rumors of a contract buyout wouldn’t die down recently? You might think so, and that’s why Frank Seravalli, in particular, was talking about a buyout.

But in the end, Rob Blake was saved by the Washington Capitals, who opted to take on his massive contract in its entirety in return for the services of Darcy Kuemper.

I’m the first to say I don’t understand it, since it’s a big financial risk.

But it seems that Rob Blake, who didn’t hesitate to take the blame for the Dubois situation, didn’t have just one option on the table to trade his center.

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Elliotte Friedman, as part of his 32 Thoughts podcast, mentioned that he’s sure the Capitals aren’t the only ones with their noses in the file of the man who earns an average of $8.5M for another seven years and who will have a no-movement clause that comes into effect on July 1.

Friedman doesn’t know exactly who the two potential teams are, but he had Jeff Marek guess. Marek mentioned the Bruins, who need help at center, and Friedman thinks he’s right.

And then the Canadiens came up again. Friedman says he hasn’t confirmed the whole thing across the league and that’s what he believes, but he still feels the Habs are one of the two teams interested.

Friedman doesn’t know what it would have cost the Habs. He also believes that the Washington deal isn’t the only one the Kings could have made, but that their best offer obviously came from Washington, who obviously weren’t too afraid of Dubois and his career “history”.

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We also know that the Kings, who know Kuemper, wanted a goalkeeper. And clearly, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton had no interest in parting with Samuel Montembeault or Cayden Primeau in exchange for (Dubois’ contract).

It’s not logical to think that the Habs would have done that.

One also has to wonder if the Habs were asking the Kings to withhold salary to respect their salary structure – if the discussions got that far – in order to move. The Capitals didn’t.

In the end, we know that Dubois was always attractive to the Habs, but the stars never aligned. So here he is in Washington for the next stage of his career, where he may be happier than in L.A. for a good four and a quarter months?

Extension

Related to the Dubois buyout rumors: the Washington deal tells us it surely wasn’t done to buy him out at 1/3 of his salary, but last night’s Oilers win confirms it all.

After all, he’ll be 26 on Monday, and the buyout window won’t open until then, since the Stanley Cup Final won’t be over. If the Capitals want to buy him out, it will officially be at 2/3 of his salary – and that’s not going to happen.