Montreal Canadiens sign Hunter Shinkaruk to a one-year deal
By Omar L
After acquiring him from the Calgary Flames earlier this afternoon, the Montreal Canadiens have signed Hunter Shinkaruk to a one-year contract.
The Montreal Canadiens didn’t waste any time getting this deal done and signed. Earlier, the Habs chose to send restricted free agent Kerby Rychel to the Calgary Flames in exchange for Hunter Shinkaruk. The reason for the trade most likely stemmed from difficulties in getting Rychel signed. Whether it was because of his demand or a fit on the team for the following season, moving on from him made sense for the organization.
In return, the Habs received fellow 2013 first-round pick Hunter Shinkaruk who was also an RFA. But contract negotiations didn’t take as long as they did with the other free agents Montreal had heading into this season.
Shinkaruk is now on a one-year deal that will take him to the end of the 2018-19 season. It’s a two-way contract that will see him make league-minimum at $650,000 and $80,000 in the AHL with the Laval Rocket.
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Considering the limited number of forward spots on the Montreal Canadiens heading into the new campaign, it’s more likely Shinkaruk spends most of the year in the minors. But it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get a call-up towards the end of the season to see if he’s worth keeping beyond the year.
With the Shinkaruk contract on the books, the Montreal Canadiens are now sitting at approximately $7.2 million in cap space. Still plenty of room to manoeuvre during the season and take on poor deals for compensation.
This ended up working out pretty well for Marc Bergevin in this situation as a $650,000 AAV was the number many expected Rychel to sit at. Now there is only one more RFA to deal with in Michael McCarron. Who knows what is holding that back, but Shinkurak’s deal is further proof that McCarron shouldn’t be getting anything too high.
A matching cap hit of $650,000 makes the most sense, especially as he is far from being a lock to make the team out of training camp this season.
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It’ll be interesting to see what kind of impact Shinkurak has. Laval has done nothing but add to its team this entire season, and he’s another boost in what looks to be a deep roster of speed and skill. Whether that gets them to the playoffs is way too early to tell. However, there will definitely be more competitive games for them this year.