Montreal Canadiens Need To Take Advantage of Rivals In Salary Cap Trouble
I think Bergevin showed the blueprint for the best way to upgrade his roster with a trade made last summer. The Habs had plenty of cap space, and the Winnipeg Jets were running low on the commodity. Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff also happens to be an old pal of Bergevin’s from their days together in Chicago.
Cheveldayoff was set to pay goaltender Steve Mason $4.1 million this season. The problem was, Connor Hellebuyck had taken over the number one role. The Jets were not interested in paying a backup goaltender more than four million dollars.
Bergevin cleverly offered to help out his old friend, at a cost of course. The Canadiens sent minor league defenceman Simon Bourque to Winnipeg for Mason, Joel Armia, a 7th round pick this year and a 4th round pick in next year’s draft.
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The Canadiens immediately bought out Mason’s contract. Essentially, Montreal was gifted a decent, young winger in Armia for taking on an onerous contract.
Bergevin needs to use this philosophy once again this offseason.
The NHL has seen the death of the “bridge” contract lately. No longer do excellent 21 and 22-year-olds settle for a decent three-year deal coming out of their entry-level contract. Auston Matthews will earn more than $11 million next year. Connor McDavid is making $12.5 million, Leon Draisaitl got $8.5 million, Jack Eichel is earning $10 million.
With young players getting huge contracts, teams can find themselves in cap trouble in a hurry. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames are four teams that need to shed payroll this summer.
It would be difficult for Bergevin to convince a division rival like the Leafs or Lightning to hand over a good player. However, he should be calling his old pal once again to see if they can make Armia Deal 2.0. If that doesn’t work, maybe the Flames would be interested in swap talks. If the Lightning get really desperate, they could be a trade partner with the Habs as well.
The deal would have two key parts. First of all, the Canadiens would need to take on an overpaid player. Second, the other team would need to send along a sweetener to have the deal make sense for the Habs.
Let’s take a look at a few teams that could be desperate to move salary this summer.