Montreal Canadiens: Can They Afford To Keep Danault Line Long Term?

Left Wing: Tomas Tatar

Tatar was basically a throw-in in the Max Pacioretty trade. For whatever reason, things did not work out very well during his short stay with the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas, an expansion team at the time gave up first, second and third round picks for Tatar who was not having his best season with the Detroit Red Wings.

Leading up to the trade, Tatar had 16 goals and 28 points in 62 games in Detroit. He was scoring goals at a 20 goal pace, but was not exactly performing up to the expectations he created to that point in his career.

Tatar scored 19 goals and 39 points in 73 games as a rookie with the Red Wings in 2013-14. Following that performance, he had seasons of 29, 21 and 25 goals and was between 45 and 56 points each year. He was having a down season in 2017-18, but the Knights rolled the dice on a bounce back.

He bounced back alright, but he didn’t do it until he landed in Montreal. The Canadiens acquired him along with Nick Suzuki and a second round pick for Pacioretty.

Though the Slovakia native had just six points in 20 games in Vegas and found himself a healthy scratch in the postseason, he proved that season was an aberration. He quickly found chemistry with Danault and Gallagher and scored 25 goals and 58 points for the Habs last season.

That set a new career high in points, but is only slightly above his average season before his one disappointing campaign. If he continues to show he is a regular 25 goal scoring winger who can put up 50-55 points, what is he going to be worth as an unrestricted free agent?

Tatar has two years left with a cap hit of $5.3 million, though Vegas is paying about ten percent of that right now. I doubt he will be willing to take a pay cut. A good comparable for him right now is a former linemate during his time in the Motor City, Gustav Nyquist.

Nyquist played last season with the Red Wings and San Jose Sharks where he was dealt at the trade deadline. He finished the season with 22 goals and 60 points and will turn 30 before the next training camp begins. Tatar will be 30 when he is eligible for free agency.

Nyquist signed a four-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets on July 1 with a $5.5 million cap hit. Assuming Tatar maintains his pace of 25 or so goals to go with 55ish points, I would expect him to sign a similar deal in 2021. With the cap going up a bit his ask will likely go up along with it.

Tatar would be looking for a four-year contract with a cap hit of $6 million, which is just a $700,000 raise on his current deal.

Centre: Phillip Danault

Phillip Danault was not a throw-in to a trade like Tatar was, but he was certainly a steal. He joined the Canadiens, along with a second round pick that became Alexander Romanov, from the Chicago Blackhawks for depth wingers Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann.

The Blackhawks were making a push for yet another Stanley Cup in 2016, but I think they got a little overzealous when they made this trade. Fleischmann and Weise were mediocre depth pieces for the Canadiens, but were easily replaceable. They certainly weren’t going to push a team over the top into Stanley Cup territory, and the Hawks lost in the first round.

Danault was a 23 year old first round pick who was just showing an ability to play at the NHL level. Since then, he has not only shown he has the ability to play in the NHL, he has the ability to play an elite two-way game at the NHL level.

Danault just had a breakout year offensively, scoring 12 goals and 53 points for the Habs. There were doubts about his offensive game dating back to the day the Canadiens acquired him from Chicago. He scored 40 points in his first full season in Montreal, but regularly played with offensive wingers Max Pacioretty and Alex Radulov. Most of the credit for Danault’s points were attributed to his linemates.

There were never questions about his ability to defend. The Victoriaville native was always known as a smart defensive player, even dating back to his Junior hockey days with his hometown Tigres. He was drafted 26th overall after scoring 23 goals, but it was his defensive acumen that made him a safe bet.

Last season, Danault received some recognition for his ability to play a defensive game as he was ranked seventh on the Frank J. Selke voting for best defensive forward in the NHL. So there is no question he is an elite defensive player who can be the linchpin of a team’s penalty kill. He can also play with offensive minded wingers and just showed he can score over 50 points.

If he makes it to unrestricted free agency, there is no way he is taking less than the three-year deal with a $5 million cap hit that Tyler Bozak signed with the St. Louis Blues a year ago. They are similar types of players that can kill penalties, win face-offs, be trusted in defensive situations and also chip in 50 points if given the right linemates. Danault will be 28 when he becomes a UFA, so he will be looking for more term than Bozak who was 30 when he signed with the Blues.

If he keeps going at this pace, a five-year contract with a $5.5 million cap hit is not out of the question for Danault who is a bargain right now at just over $3 million.

Right Wing: Brendan Gallagher

Gallagher was not a throw-in to a deal like Tatar, nor was he stolen away in a trade for next to no return like Danault. He was however, a 5th round draft pick back in 2010 so he was the steal of the draft. This makes the Habs top line pretty unique. They were acquired by using a 5th round pick, trading away two depth wingers who were soon to be UFA’s and taking on a salary dump from an expansion team.

Not a bad piece of business to build one of the best two-way lines in the league out of scraps.

Gallagher has proven to be the best goal scorer of the trio. He has back to back seasons where he reached the 30 goal plateau setting a career high last year with 33 and finishing with 52 points. He set a career high with 54 points the year previous, and also scored 31 goals that season.

So that is back to back years scoring 30 goals and 50 points. He has two more years before hitting free agency, just like his current linemates, and just like those two he is a current bargain at $3.75 million.

Professional athletes, maybe aside from Tom Brady, don’t typically enjoy being bargains and proven 30 goal scorers get paid in the National Hockey League. Gallagher has shown he has a knack for winning battles in corners and in front of the net against bigger defencemen, and can find rebounds and put the puck in the net.

There have been a few similar players that made it to free agency recently and they cashed in big time. James van Riemsdyk is a much less physical player, but a similar goal scoring threat in front of the net. He scored 36 goals and 54 points in his last season with the Toronto Maple Leafs before signing a five-year contract with the Philadelphia Flyers for $7 million per year.

Anders Lee was the top goal scoring winger on the market this summer. He was coming off a 28 goal, 51 point performance for the New York Islanders, though he had scored 40 in the past. He also got a $7 million salary, but for the next seven years.

If Gallagher can continue to prove he is a 30 goal man, he will hit free agency at the age of 29 and be pointing to JVR and Lee’s contracts as his asking price. Both of those wingers were 29 when they got their deals, and both were providing similar production.

Gallagher is going to be looking to nearly double his current cap hit of $3.75 million. With everything he brings offensively, defensively, as a leader in the dressing room and someone you want your younger players to model their game after, he makes a compelling case for $7 million over six years.

Can the Habs keep them all?

If the Habs top line are all going to re-sign with the Canadiens, it will come at a huge cost – literally. It would be great to keep them all long term, but is is realistic with the salary cap?

If Tatar signs for $6 million, Danault gets $5.5 and Gallagher jumps to $7 million, the trio will go from a combined cap hit of $11.63 million to $18.5 million. That is a jump of $6.87 million in salary cap space. That’s the equivalent of adding a top free agent, but without actually bringing in a new player.

The summer of 2021 is going to lead to significant changes to the Montreal Canadiens salary structure. Not only is the top line all going to be unrestricted free agents, but the Finnish line of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Armia will all need new contracts as well.

Jeff Petry‘s slated to be an unrestricted free agent that summer and Ryan Poehling‘s entry-level contract will be up. That is a large number of significant players that need new deals at the same time. If Kotkaniemi and Poehling develop like many anticipate they will, their contracts could be enormous.

What will also be interesting to follow, is how much the salary cap jumps that summer. There are two things that could see the cap jump as much, if not more than the $6.87 million the Habs would need to keep this line together for many years.

One thing that is going to result in a larger cap is the Seattle expansion team. When Vegas joined the league two years ago, they paid a huge stipend which helped the cap jump $4.5 million that summer. Seattle is joining the NHL for the 2021-22 season and will be an ever larger expansion fee than Vegas did.

The second thing that will surely see the cap increase is the TV deal in the United States. The current ten year deal with NBC sees the league make $200 million per year from the network. That deal is up in 2021 and with Gary Bettman expanding the league nationwide since becoming the commissioner, they will be able to get a huge payday when they sell the NHL rights in America.

We could easily see the cap go up by $7 million or more in the summer of 2021, and with few contracts already committed beyond then, the Canadiens will have a lot of financial flexibility.

If this line continues to prove they are among the best in the league, you can be sure the Canadiens will find a way to keep them all together beyond the end of the 2020-21 season.