Montreal Canadiens: Is Cap Trouble Coming Next Offseason?

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has been busy this offseason. Is cap trouble looming?

The Montreal Canadiens have been a very busy team this offseason. They have been trading and signing players and extending current pieces that should make their team much stronger for the 2020-21 season.

We don’t know exactly when that season will start, or how long the schedule will be, or if teams will be playing in their own arenas, or if there will be fans in attendance.

But we do know the newest version of the Montreal Canadiens is destined to be much better than the 2019-20 squad.

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The Canadiens have added Jake Allen, Joel Edmundson, Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli to a roster that took out the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games and held its own against the Philadelphia Flyers in a tightly contested six game series. Their regular season was not great, but they looked far more polished in the postseason.

Now, they will try to carry over that success into the 2020-21 season. The additions of Anderson, Toffoli, Allen and Edmundson make the team better, but for the first time in years, the Canadiens need to be careful of the salary cap. They can dance around by carrying a 22 man roster for the upcoming season, but how much trouble are they going to get into after the 2021 postseason?

Currently, the Habs have seven forwards, six defencemen and two goaltenders signed for next season.

As you can sees above, that leaves them about $15.5 million to fill out their roster. Players whose contracts expire next offseason include Phillip Danault, Tomas Tatar and Joel Armia who are all unrestricted free agents, as well as Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Victor Mete, Artturi Lehkonen, Cale Fleury, Ryan Poehling and Noah Juulsen who are all restricted free agents.

Let’s be very conservative and just give modest raises to Lehkonen, Mete, and Poehling while keeping Juulsen and Fleury in the minors.

That still leaves $11 million to sign Tatar, Danault, Kotkaniemi and Armia.

I think it is safe to assume Armia won’t be coming back as there is just no room. Kotkaniemi will definitely be back but he is the biggest wildcard here. If he steps up and has a terrific season, scoring 25 goals and 60 points, he’s looking for big money. If he struggles a bit and finds himself back in Laval, he won’t be getting much of a raise.

I think a breakout year is more likely, but let’s meet in the middle here and assume he has a solid season as a third line centre, and eventually settles on a bridge contract of $3.5 million for two seasons.

That would leave the Canadiens with about $7.5 million to re-sign Danault and Tatar. That is definitely not enough money to sign both, so one of them will end up being a cap casualty. It makes the most sense to keep Danault at this point, unless Poehling has a terrific breakout season and can take on a two-way role.

Poehling would need to take a monumental leap in his development for that to happen. I still have high expectations for Poehling, but I can’t see him taking over Danault’s spot that soon.

I don’t see anyone that can step in and do what Tatar does either, but there is a terrific young winger waiting in the wings.

Cole Caufield is a right winger, while Tatar plays the left side, but the teenaged scoring sensation will be playing in the NHL in 2021-22. This will result in someone currently playing the right side to move over and play left wing.

Perhaps that is Tyler Toffoli moving into a top six role on the left side to fill in for the departed Tatar while Caufield steps into a top nine role. That would make your 2021-22 roster look something like this:

That doesn’t leave a lot of cap space, which makes Kotkaniemi’s next contract very important. Also, someone is going to be lost to the Seattle Kraken. It’s still far too early to speculate on that, but if it is Paul Byron or Ben Chiarot, the Habs lose a nice piece of their depth, but also gain $3.5 million in cap space.

If it is a defenceman, that just opens up a roster spot for Fleury or Juulsen, and allows Romanov to move up the lineup. Again, it’s difficult to tell who the Kraken will take, but they are likely to free up some needed cap space for the 2021-22 Canadiens.

Still, it looks like the Habs will suffer a cap casulaty, their first since the infamous Andrei Markov, Alex Radulov “first come first served” quote was uttered by Bergevin in 2017. That will likely be Tatar. Unless Tatar scores well over 60 points next season, and Poehling has an incredible breakout campaign, it’s possible the Habs could let Danault walk instead.

Either way, I hope you enjoy the final season of the Tatar, Danault, Gallagher line because they have been incredible to watch.