Montreal Canadiens: Five Defencemen The Habs Could Target in Free Agency
The Montreal Canadiens have not been spending all their cap money in the past few years. If they decide to be more aggressive next season, here are five defencemen they could target in free agency.
The Montreal Canadiens have somewhat infamously spent well under the salary cap for the past three years. Perhaps not so coincidentally they also haven’t been good enough to qualify for the postseason in that time. It takes more than just spending money to build a good team, but when a rich team like the Habs leaves several million dollars on the table, they aren’t using all of their assets to their advantage.
If the Habs are going to finally spend some dollars in free agency, they have to first identify their biggest need. Anyone who watched the Habs this season, especially when they were healthy, would tell you they need some better defence in front of Carey Price.
Price is the highest paid goaltender in the league and is likely past his best years. At 32 years of age he isn’t done yet, but the clock is certainly starting to tick a little louder. Putting Price in a better chance to succeed is paramount to the Habs having any success in the next few years.
It was pretty obvious this season that the Habs allowed too many massive scoring chances. It doesn’t matter if you have the best goalie in the world, if you can’t limit dangerous scoring chances against, the pucks will start to go in the net sooner or later. That’s what happened all season. Even early in the year when the Habs were healthy, they had a handful of games where they allowed five or more goals because they could not defend well in their own end. Don’t even get me started on their ability to kill a penalty early in the season.
Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of saying if the team is going to spend money in the upcoming offseason, they should use it on a defenceman. Finding someone who can chew up 20 minutes or more and provide steady defence as well as some offensive ability would be ideal.
Luckily for the Habs, there are a handful of players available in free agency that could fill that role. Let’s take a look at the top five defencemen the Canadiens could target in free agency this offseason (whenever that will be).