Early Signs Of A Trade Brewing Between Canadiens And Red Wings?

Earlier this month fans of the Montreal Canadiens flooded the Bell Center with chants of "We Want Larkin!" to let both the Detroit Red Wings and their former captain, forward Dylan Larkin, know that they would welcome him to the City of Montreal with open arms.

While it seems unlikely that Larkin will be dealt to Montreal, given that the Canadiens are not one of the teams on Larkin's pre-approved list of potential trade destinations, it does sound like there is a very real possibility of a deal brewing between these two teams.

On Friday night, Canadiens insider Eric Engels reported that Red Wings assistant general manager Kris Draper was on hand at the United Center to personally scout a game between the Canadiens and the Chicago Blackhawks. Draper servers as the Red Wings director of amateur scouting and while it's true he could have been scouting the Blackhawks, there's reason to believe it's the Canadiens he had in his sights.

This marks the third time Draper has personally scouted the Canadiens in less than a month with the Red Wings aGM doing so on September 29th, October 20th and now October 24th as well. On top of Draper's presence, we've seen Red Wings pro scout Chris Yzerman take in 3 games of his own, once with Draper on September 9th and then again on his own both on the 6th and 17th of October.

While this doesn't mean a trade is imminent, it certainly shows a pattern of interest on the part of the Red Wings upper management. With so many moving pieces in play for the Red Wings however, including the aforementioned Dylan Larkin and unsigned restricted free agent defenseman Simon Edvinsson, there's no telling what they might be up to.