MONTREAL — As much pain as Montreal Canadiens fans may feel over Mikhail Sergachev's impressive rookie season, they may take some solace from his return to the Bell Centre with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
By playing his 40th game of the season, which happened to be in Montreal, the Canadiens get to keep the second round draft pick they initially sent with Sergachev to Tampa Bay on June 15 for forward Jonathan Drouin.
The Lightning asked for the draft pick because, while they planned on the 19-year-old Sergachev being with the NHL club this season, they didn't know how much he would play or how effective he would be.
The Russian not only made the squad, he's on a regular defence pair with veteran Anton Stralman and had put up eight goals and 17 assists going into the Montreal game. His 25 points, tops among NHL rookie defencemen, were seven more than Drouin produced while adapting to a new position at centre.
"When you look at that trade, there was an unknown," Lightning coach John Cooper said. "That's why there was a second round pick.
"You've got to protect because, I'll be honest, I didn't know he was going to have the year he's having now and I don't think any of us did. We were hoping for this to happen, but to stand here and say in training camp Sergachev is going to have 20 plus points and running our second powerplay and playing almost 20 minutes a night now, I don't think we would have envisioned that.
"It's a tribute to the kid for just grinding, finding a way and adapting to the league. I'm just really happy with his development."
The deal gave the resurgent Lightning the left-side defenceman they were seeking. But the Canadiens, who drafted Sergachev ninth overall in 2016, will probably end up liking it too.
Drouin is a highly skilled playmaker whose addition would likely have boosted the attack had veteran winger Alexander Radulov not unexpectedly left as a free agent for the Dallas Stars. Most of Montreal's thin forward group has struggled to produce goals this season, but 22-year-old Drouin should be an offensive leader for many years.
Meanwhile, the talent-stacked Lightning have been able to bring Sergachev along in a winning environment, getting 15:25 of ice time per game while rarely having to go up against opponent's top lines. It makes for ideal conditions to develop a big skilled player who many see as a future top-pair defenceman.
"The one big thing we did was we paired him with Stralman, and if I was going to grab a couple of defencemen in the league I'd want to learn from, he'd be right there at the top of the list," said Cooper. "We're not going to leave him on an island.
"And the games when Stralman hasn't been able to be there, (Dan) Girardi has been right beside him."
Sergachev also has a Russian teammates to learn from in league scoring leader Nikita Kucherov, winger Vladislav Namestnikov and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.
"He's a smart kid for his age," said Kucherov. "He's really mature.
"I knew it from the first day he was going to stay for the whole year. You don't want to see this kind of talent going back to junior or the AHL. He's one of the best D's on our team. You can see the moves he does and the plays he makes in the game."
Sergachev, who played four games for the Canadiens last season before returning to the junior Windsor Spitfires, played down his return to Montreal as just another game. It is more than that, of course. By playing a 40th game, he also uses up a year of eligibility for free agency.
He looks to be in the NHL stay.
"I never thought about it," said Sergachev. "It's not my business, I'd say.
"It's the GM and the coaches. They have to talk about it. I don't have to think about that."
Bill Beacon, The Canadian Press
