Montreal Canadiens: Marc Bergevin Read Goalie Market Well

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin deserves credit for landed Jake Allen.

The Montreal Canadiens have had terrible luck with backup goaltenders for the past few years.

Al Montoya filled in admirably behind Carey Price in 2016-17, but didn’t look so good to start the following year. After just four games he was replaced by Charlie Lindgren who was not great and Antti Niemi who actually finished the season quite well.

It was the following year that things caught up to Niemi. He struggled mightily out of the gate and the Habs were left scrambling for a second option in goal. They couldn’t seem to find one and were stuck with Niemi who had a 3.78 GAA and an .887 SV% in 17 games as the Canadiens missed the postseason by two points.

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This past season, Keith Kinkaid was brought in to take the job. He was not effective early in the season and was eventually replaced by Lindgren. This was Lindgren’s third opportunity to take the job and he failed once again, posting numbers that weren’t dissimilar to Niemi’s the previous season.

Habs general manager Marc Bergevin clearly had enough and was ready to find the right backup this offseason.

It has become increasingly important to have two good goaltenders over the years and will be even more so next season with a compressed schedule. The NHL is going to start the season months late and are likely to try and shoehorn as many games together as possible. Having two goalies you can trust is more important than ever.

So, Bergevin went out and traded a third round pick and a seventh round pick to the St. Louis Blues for a 7th round pick and goaltender Jake Allen.

Allen had a great year for the Blues in 2019-20, putting up a 12-6-3 record with a 2.15 GAA and a .927 SV% in 24 games. He basically played every third game while Jordan Binnington played the bulk of the starts. Allen will be taking on the exact same role with the Habs next season.

The Fredericton, New Brunswick native has one year left on his contract with a $4.35 million cap hit. Bergevin quickly signed him to a two-year extension that has a cap hit of $2.875 for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

So, in total, Allen is under contract for the next three seasons and will cost a total of $10.1 million. A three year deal worth $10.1 million would normally come with a cap hit of $3,366,667 but since Allen had one year left on his deal when the arrived, his cap hit is a little higher in year one and lower in years two and three.

Getting Allen under contract for the next three seasons at that cap number is a great move for Bergevin. Looking around the league at other goaltenders that changed teams, on one got a better bargain than the Habs did with Allen.

A long list of big name goaltenders hit the open market on October 9, and the first one to sign was Matt Murray. The Ottawa Senators gave him a four-year deal with a cap hit of $6.25 million. He had a save percentage just under .900 last season on a deep Pittsburgh Penguins team.

Cam Talbot signed a three-year deal worth a total of $11 million, so he will make a little more than Allen over the next three years. Talbot had a 2.63 GAA and .919 SV% last season after posting a SV% under .900 the previous year.

Anton Khudobin chose to stay with the Dallas Stars for three years and a total of $10 million after a fantastic run with them in the postseason. He is four years older than Allen and will be 37 when that contract ends, and he obviously didn’t want to leave Dallas.

Braden Holtby signed a two-year contract with a cap hit of $4.3 million after having a 3.11 GAA and a .897 SV%.

Corey Crawford got two years and $3.9 million per season from the New Jersey DEvils after a solid season with the Chicago Blackhawks. Still, he will be 36 years old before next season starts and had worse numbers than Allen with a 2.77 GAA and a .917 SV%.

Thomas Greiss would have been an interesting option, but he chose to go to the Detroit Red Wings where he has a better chance to be the team’s starter. His 2.73 GAA and .913 SV% were not as good as Allen’s numbers but his $3.6 million cap hit for two years is pretty much what Allen will make for the next two seasons.

There were plenty of unrestricted free agent goaltenders available this summer. Wisely, Marc Bergevin chose to jump ahead of the market by trading for Jake Allen who had better numbers than all of them last season, and has a better looking contract structure for the next three years as well.