Montreal Canadiens: Three Players Who Could Be Traded To Get Habs Under The Salary Cap

Brett Kulak

The Canadiens defence played really well in the postseason. That was led by Shea Weber, Jeff Petry and Ben Chiarot but Brett Kulak was terrific as well. He took on big minutes (not as much as the other three) and played solid defensive hockey and moved the puck up ice to start the offensive attack.

He had a fine regular season but it was a bit up and down. He played really well when he was paired with Petry, but not so great when he was on a third pairing with Cale Fleury or Victor Mete and not even that great on a top pairing with Weber.

So, he was fantastic when on the second pairing with Petry but he seems to have lost that role to Edmundson. If Kulak is pushed down to the third pair anyway, it might make sense to move him for a draft pick to save a few dollars. Someone has to go, and Kulak’s $1.85 million salary over the next two years is a bargain, but that also means other teams would be very interested.

If the Habs traded Kulak, it gives them about $700,000 in cap space, but it also means they would have to call someone else up to take his place on the roster. This would lead the Habs to making several cost-saving moves, like sending Jordan Weal and Ryan Poehling down to the Laval Rocket and having cheaper players like Lukas Vejdemo and Alex Belzile serve as the extra forwards.

It would give the team just enough cap space and not much room to add at the deadline. It is an option that would work, but it would mean Bergevin is decreasing his depth at his very favorite position – left defence. He’s worked hard to acquire a lot of depth on his blue line and I doubt he wants to take away from it entering a season with an unknown schedule that could be very condensed.

Trading Kulak works – barely, and it means losing depth at a key position. I’ll bet Bergevin moves a winger before he trades a defenceman away.