Montreal Canadiens: How Marc Bergevin Painted Habs in Salary Cap Corner

Montreal Canadiens winger Jonathan Drouin wasn’t able to play last night’s game.

The team announced he was battling a non-covid related virus and he was pulled from the lineup just minutes before puck drop. He took part in warm up but was constantly checking in with the team’s trainer before leaving the ice.

Since Drouin couldn’t play, the Canadiens had to dress 11 forwards and 7 defensemen for the game.

You would think, or hope, that if Drouin has to miss more action that they could insert Cole Caufield in his place. However, that isn’t as easy to do as it seems and that’s because Marc Bergevin painted the team into a collective bargaining agreement corner with his trade deadline moves.

Bergevin only made a couple of depth moves before the trade deadline but it had serious cap implications.

He traded for Eric Staal, who has been extremely ineffective, and picked up Jon Merrill and Erik Gustafsson for depth on defence. Merrill is known as a great defensive defenceman and he has come as advertised. Gustafsson is known for offence, but a complete lack of defence.

Merrill’s cap hit of $925,000 was not difficult to fit into the team’s cap structure. However, the Canadiens needed to get the Buffalo Sabres to eat half of Staal’s cap hit and had the Philadelphia Flyers to do the same with Gustafsson.

Still, the team finds itself right up against the cap now.

Also, to make room on the roster for Gustafsson, Bergevin put Victor Mete on waivers and lost the young blue liner to the Ottawa Senators for nothing in return. Mete’s cap hit of $735,000 was easier to deal with than the $1.5 million the Habs are on the hook for on Gustafsson’s contract.

At the end of the day, the Habs had about $1.1 million of cap room after the trade deadline, according to capfriendly.com

However, the roster maneuvering also left the Habs with five healthy defenders ready to play on April 12, the day of the deadline. So, they had to call up Xavier Ouellet to face the Toronto Maple Leafs before sending him back down when Ben Chiarot was ready to join the team a few days later.

The problem here is, the team is only allowed to call up four players after the trade deadline, and they had also put Paul Byron and Alexander Romanov on the taxi squad on April 11th to save a few dollars. That means they had to use three of their four call ups just hours after the trade deadline. Now, they are only allowed to call up one more player before the end of the regular season on May 12th.

This has stapled Jake Evans to the taxi squad, making him ineligible to play unless someone is injured and he can be brought back on an emergency basis.

Another player that we would all like to see in the lineup is Cole Caufield. However, with his cap hit of $1.3 million, the Canadiens are about $200,000 short of being able to add him to their roster. That, and he would count as their fourth call up so it would be risky to bring him aboard.

Even in an emergency situation they don’t have the cap space to call up Caufield.

They would if they kept Mete instead of trading for Gustafsson.

They also would have had six healthy defencemen on April 12th, and not had to waste a precious post trade deadline call up on Ouellet for one game of work.

When the Habs made the decision to put Mete on waivers, they already had acquired Jon Merrill from the Detroit Red Wings. They also knew that Chiarot was back on the ice and close to returning. So, they knew they were swapping out an 8th defender when they gave up on Mete and traded for Gustafsson.

Swapping 8th defencemen is about as minor a transaction as an NHL team can make. However, it has had huge repercussions on the Canadiens lineup. The fact that Merrill and Gustafsson had to quarantine meant that the Habs didn’t have enough D after losing Mete and needed to call one up.

That recall of Ouellet means they have to be really careful with who they bring onto the roster and has resulted in Evans being incapable of stepping in for an ineffective Eric Staal. They simply can’t call Evans up.

Also, taking on an additional $765,000 in salary has made it difficult to fit Caufield into the lineup, even if there is an injured forward. Drouin couldn’t play last night but even if he is out all week, the cap makes it nearly impossible to play Caufield.

So, Bergevin added some depth at the deadline. The last decision, to waive Mete and bring in Gustafsson, has had a big impact on Evans and Caufield, as the Habs are painted into a salary cap corner.

All to bring in an older version of Mete to be the team’s 8th blue liner.