Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Gorges still can’t explain falling out of favor in Montreal

joshgorgesgetty

To hear him tell it, Josh Gorges has yet to hear a legit reason why the Canadiens traded him away.

“I wish I had a really good answer — where this came from and why, and how it came about — but I don’t, to be honest,” Gorges told the Kelowna Courier, just weeks after getting dealt to Buffalo. “It was a shock to me.”

Gorges, 29, was at the center of a whirlwind scenario near the end of June, when his name popped up -- seemingly out out of nowhere -- in a flurry of trade rumors. His name first surfaced on the eve of free agency when reports revealed he’d been dangled by Montreal in a proposed move to Toronto, only for Gorges to reject the move as part of his no-trade clause.

Eventually, he accepted a deal to Buffalo.

Deeply disappointed” by what transpired, Gorges -- signed through 2017-18 for a cap hit of $3.9 million -- said he “never wanted to leave Montreal,” adding “in no way has this been my decision.”

But it’s that cap number that could’ve played him out of town. Signed by ex-GM Pierre Gauthier, Gorges (and his contract) were inherited by current GM Marc Bergevin, who’s currently in the midst of a dicey financial summer -- yesterday, he avoided arbitration with RFA Lars Eller by inking the forward to a four-year, $14 million deal; now, Bergevin must sort out negotiations with franchise defenseman P.K. Subban, which will undoubtedly be pricey.

By shedding Gorges’ cap hit, Bergevin also freed up money for the future. Next year, young forwards Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher are RFAs, as are promising defensemen Jarred Tinordi and Nathan Beaulieu.

But either that message wasn’t relayed to Gorges, or he wasn’t buying it.

“Not really,” Gorges said when asked if he got a satisfactory explanation for what transpired. “To be honest, I don’t need one or want one. It doesn’t do me any good, it doesn’t do my family any good.

“The thing for us is to look ahead, look to the future and what’s in front of us.”