Montreal Canadiens: What on Earth to do With Tatar and Danault

Tomas Tatar

Well, may as well start with the easier one of the two to evaluate. Tomas Tatar is there to do two things: put the puck in the net, and put points on the board.

Last year, there was no other Canadien that was better at getting points that Tomas Tatar. Tatar finished last year with 22 goals and 61 points in 68 games. That tied the team lead in goals with Brendan Gallagher, and good enough for the Habs’ sole point leader.

Obviously there is things that cannot be seen with those numbers. Gallagher seems to be a much better leader than Tatar both on and off the ice (not saying anything bad about Tatar here, just that Gallagher is one of the best leaders in the NHL), and Gallagher is more consistent.

And of course, you cannot just compare two players on the same team. Like case law, we can look at similar contracts to Tatar to see what he could be worth, if he is worth the contract he is getting now and what his contract may look like.

All of the cap statistics will come from the website Cap Friendly. It is a great resource to see what every player in the NHL makes, compare similar salaries and even see the point per dollar output of any NHL player.

Tomas Tatar signed a contract all the way back in 2017 with the Detroit Red Wings for 4 years at $5.3 million per year. He was then traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for a first, a second and a third round pick.

He was then traded to Montreal in the Max Pacioretty trade, where he came over with Nick Suzuki and a second round pick. And as if Montreal needed a sweetener for this deal, the Golden Knights retained 500,000$ of Tatar’s salary.

So, using Cap Friendly’s contract comparing tool, we can see the closest contracts to Tatar’s and see how he stacks up to them.