EDMONTON — Over the final half of the third period against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night, Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis could not find a way to get Owen Beck and Patrik Laine on the ice.

Over the final 15-odd minutes of regulation time, there was only a little under 4 1/2 minutes when the Oilers did not have at least Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl on the ice, if not both of them. St. Louis does not have the final change, and he was not going to expose Beck to that — or Laine, for that matter. The score was tied, the 2 points were important, and so Beck and Laine sat.

“It’s a hard team to coach against, especially on the road, because you don’t know when they’re coming, and they’re coming very often, and you need to make sure to have the right guys on the ice and you don’t have last change,” St. Louis said of McDavid and Draisaitl. “So it’s hard to get some flow with some of the lines, but I thought we managed pretty well in making sure we had the right guys on the ice.

“I was trying to get (the Beck line) out there when they were coming off, and then sometimes I got an opportunity and there was a whistle right away. You don’t want to expose a young centre like that.”

No, you don’t. And there’s an argument to be made that the Canadiens shouldn’t have to do that. With the NHL trade deadline looming Friday at 3 p.m. ET, this is a problem the Canadiens could conceivably address. Beck is replacing the injured Kirby Dach in the lineup, and though he has a bright future, the Canadiens coaches and players are not about the future.

They are about the present.

The 3-2 overtime loss to the Oilers stung in the Canadiens’ dressing room, but they played an excellent game, their best in at least a week, far better than the 4-3 overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres at home Monday.

But the players couldn’t see it that way.

“We beat Buffalo, and we lost to the Oilers,” Cole Caufield said, “so a result’s a result.”

The point the Canadiens received for reaching overtime allowed them to gain ground in the playoff race in the East, with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers all losing in regulation. They arrive at the deadline 1 point behind the Ottawa Senators, who hold the final playoff spot in the East and whom the Canadiens play twice more before the end of the season.

They are legitimately in a playoff race. And they need some help. They could use someone who would make it easier for St. Louis to play his second line over the last half of the third period against the Oilers, someone who would make the line more trustworthy, someone who would not need to be sheltered.

But during the game, a trade was made, and there was another trade immediately after the game. The Boston Bruins traded forward Justin Brazeau — an effective bottom-six forward but still a bottom-six forward — for Marat Khusnutdinov, Jakub Lauko and a sixth-round pick. Brazeau is a rental as an impending unrestricted free agent and netted the Bruins two legitimate NHL players and a pick.

For a bottom-six forward.

We have acquired forward Justin Brazeau from the Boston Bruins in exchange for forwards Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko and a sixth-round selection in the 2026 NHL Draft.

After the game, the New York Islanders traded Brock Nelson — the premier rental centre available on the market — for an impressive haul: the Colorado Avalanche’s top prospect, another first-round pick and a third-round pick. The Islanders immediately traded Oliver Kylington to the Anaheim Ducks for future considerations after the trade.

The New York Islanders have acquired forward Calum Ritchie, a first-round selection in the 2026 or 2027 NHL Draft, a conditional third-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft, and defenseman Oliver Kylington from the Colorado Avalanche, in exchange for Brock Nelson and William Dufour.

Both trades demonstrate the predicament Canadiens management finds itself in. The team needs help, the team has a hole to fill, but filling that hole is near impossible in this seller’s market because the prices are through the roof and the Canadiens are not at a point in their development as a team to be paying prices like this.

They are at a point in their development to be benefitting from this seller’s market. The Canadiens continue to get calls on their impending free agents, Joel Armia, David Savard and even Christian Dvorak. There is a market for these players, and in this environment, they could fetch some interesting returns.

This is what Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes will need to grapple with Friday as the deadline nears and those calls from other teams for their players perhaps become more aggressive. It’s a delicate dance. They have already sent a message to the group by re-signing Jake Evans to a four-year contract, thereby taking him off the trade market. And the group has sent a message to management that it wants an opportunity to move forward with this group and make a push for the playoffs, to play these meaningful games in March that management wanted at the outset of the season.

Selling off rentals at the deadline would essentially render the message sent with the Evans signing meaningless.

And so Gorton and Hughes have to balance the enticing nature of this seller’s market against the need to show their players some confidence and support. And the way to do that would not be to go get a rental in this high-priced climate; it would be to resist the urge to benefit from this high-priced climate and keep their own rentals.

That wouldn’t solve the problem of replacing Dach on the second line, but it wouldn’t weaken the team either.

And my sense is the most likely scenario is the Canadiens maintaining the status quo and betting on this group.

Basically, it will be the first time this administration will make a decision based on the present more than the future.

Another avenue to filling the hole left by the Dach injury, the hole that prevented St. Louis from playing his second line in crunch time of Thursday’s game, would be to make a hockey trade, meaning a trade that helps now but also beyond the season.

But that, too, could be complicated.

Mike Matheson is conceivably someone who could be used in a trade like that. Matheson played more than 30 minutes against the Oilers, and more than 22 of those minutes were spent playing against McDavid. Matheson felt like the Canadiens spent too much time in their own zone. When he was told he might feel that way because of how often No. 97 was on the other side, he laughed and said that might be a personal feeling.

“I don’t think McDavid tires. I don’t think Mike Matheson tires, either,” St. Louis said. “He’s got a big gas tank, and I think he used every drop of it tonight.”

Kaiden Guhle remains out indefinitely with a deep laceration to his quadriceps. Taking Matheson off this team to address the hole at forward would be devastating to its playoff hopes in the short term.

When asked after the game if Savard will be relieved when the trade deadline passes, Matheson’s answer reflected the general uncertainty so many players are feeling, perhaps even himself.

“I think there are a number of guys who have that feeling,” he said.

The Canadiens have several young players in the AHL who are close to being NHL-ready and could also be used in a hockey trade to shore up that second line, whether it’s a centre or a winger who would allow Alex Newhook to move to centre. But that, too, would weaken the Laval Rocket, and the organization is banking on the Rocket making a deep playoff run because they have so many young players who are close to being NHL-ready.

The hours leading up to the deadline will be a struggle for Canadiens management to straddle the future and the present, to forego opportunities to add valuable assets and bet on this group, to maintain a message sent with the Evans signing and encourage a culture based on results, as Caufield was entirely focused on after losing to the Oilers in overtime.

It is a test. And if the Canadiens do nothing significant ahead of the deadline, it should be read as an endorsement of their players and coaches and the uncomfortable position they forced onto their management.

The status quo, in this instance, would be an example of the Canadiens buying their own rentals more so than a refusal to help a team that clearly needs help.