Claude Julien admits Max Domi became 'expendable.'

This is probably not the kind of talk you want to hear if you're the Columbus Blue Jackets, but it's too late to do anything about it now. 

The Canadiens and general manager Marc Bergevin surprised their fan base a little when they made the decision to trade veteran forward Max Domi, along with a third round draft selection, to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for forward Josh Anderson.

The move came as a surprise if only due to the fact that Domi had quickly ingratiated himself to the fans of the Habs organization with an impressive 28 goals and 44 assists performance in his first season with the team, Those numbers dipped in the following season with Domi picking up 17 goals and 27 assists in the 71 games he played in this shortened season, and seemingly that was enough for the Habs to decide Domi had become expendable, literally. Canadiens head coach Claude Julien spoke to the media this week and discussed some of the decisions made by his organization over the course of both the Stanley Cup playoffs and the offseason, and he himself admitted that Domi was indeed expendable by the time the move was made.

"We had to put that puzzle together and just went with that," said Julien. "So it's not so much that it didn't work out, sometimes this is what hockey is all about, and you end up in a situation where Max became, I guess, a little bit expendable. We had those guys do so well, and at the same time we were able to get a big player that we needed on the wing in Josh Anderson in exchange for him."

Julien would go on to make it clear that this had not been a decision motivated by any kind of personal animosity, but rather that it had been purely a hockey decision where the Canadiens gave up Domi in order to shore up an area of weakness for their organization. 

Interestingly enough the head coach detailed in his comments that the emergence of the players who made Domi expendable, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nick Suzuki, had actually been facilitated by Domi himself. The veteran center was unable to join his teammates during training camp in July due to the fact that his diabetes put him at higher risk to COVID-19, and it was during that absence that the two youngsters showcased how valuable they could be at the center position.