The Montreal Canadiens have lots of contracts ending in two years. The biggest one they will need to worry about at the end of this season is Max Domi’s new deal. Could Brayden Schenn provide a blueprint?
The Montreal Canadiens have an abundance of players that have expiring contracts in 2021. Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Tatar, Jeff Petry, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Ryan Poehling will all need new contracts following the 2020-21 campaign.
The Habs have considerably less contracts to deal with at the conclusion of this season. Victor Mete will be a restricted free agent, as will Noah Juulsen and Nick Cousins. The only unrestricted free agents next July are Nate Thompson, Christian Folin and Keith Kinkaid.
Those negotiations should all be pretty smooth. The Mete contract may be difficult to sort out because he is playing top pairing minutes and is a terrific skater and good puck moving defender. However, he does not score a lot so he won’t be getting a contract like Charlie McAvoy did for the Boston Bruins.
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The most important negotiation for the Canadiens will be with Max Domi. He was acquired in a trade for Alex Galchenyuk in June of 2018 and immediately broke out during his first season with the Habs. Though he had just nine goals and 45 points in his last season with the Arizona Coyotes, Domi set career highs across the board when he scored 28 goals, 44 assists and 72 points for the Canadiens last season.
It has been difficult to find a recent comparable for Domi when trying to figure out what his next contract will look like. Kevin Hayes just signed a $50 million dollar, seven-year contract and his career highs are just 25 goals and 49 points. However, he was an unrestricted free agent and they always get higher paydays than restricted free agents like Domi will be.
There were a plethora of RFAs earlier this summer and they more or less changed the landscape for young players. Alex Debrincat, Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, Brayden Point, Charlie McAvoy, Zach Werenski and Brock Boeser all signed three year deals with cap hits ranging from $4.9 million to $7 million.
A few of those players put up similar numbers to Domi, but they are all younger and will still be restricted free agents at the end of these contracts. So, they aren’t the best comparables for Domi either.
Who is a good comparable to Domi? Well, Brayden Schenn just signed a long-term extension with the St. Louis Blues and if you look at the numbers, Domi and Schenn should have similar cap hits.
Schenn set career highs with the Blues in 2017-18 when he scored 28 goals and 70 points. That is the same number of goals Domi had last season and two less points. Schenn is four years older than Domi, and has more of a proven track record of success. He has reached 20 goals on four occasions and also has four seasons of 50 or more points.
Schenn just signed an eight year extension with the Blues with a cap hit of $6.5 million.
Domi is just 24 years old, and could reach the 20 goal and 50 point plateau three more times in the next few years to have very similar stats to Schenn. Of course, in the future he could also be closer to the 72 points he had last season. That is the tricky thing with contract negotiations. If a player takes another step after signing a contract, the team gets a steal of a contract. If he doesn’t reach his career highs from his 23 year old season, he may prove to be an overpayment.
With the way Max Domi plays the game and the skill, speed, playmaking ability and passion he brings to the Habs lineup every night, a long-term contract should be ironed out as soon as possible.
If he is going to sign soon, the Brayden Schenn contract provides a blueprint for Domi’s contract. He is younger than Schenn, but both players broke out after being traded, and have proven to be top six players in the NHL.
Since Domi is younger, maybe the average annual value has to go up a little bit from $6.5 million to $7 million. Still, an eight year deal for Domi at $7 million per year would be a great contract for both sides.