Montreal Canadiens: Three Free Agents To Replace Departures

Devastating news out of Montreal this week, as it is revealed that Shea Weber is probable to miss all of next year dealing with thumb, ankle and knee injuries. If there is a silver lining to this dark thundercloud of news, is that Weber would likely be exposed to Seattle and not be picked. That means that Bergevin could protect all of Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson and Jeff Petry.

But that leaves the tall order of replacing the Man Mountain. Alexander Romanov will be better next year, and will certainly help with that. And not many teams have a guy on the second line that could step up to first-line like Petry. So we have Bruisin’ Ben Chiarot, Joel Steady Eddie Edmundson, Jeff Punishin’ Petry and the Tsar Alexander Romanov. All big, all physical.

While Jeff Petry has confidence with the puck on his stick and breaking out of the zone, the rest are more of the stay-at-home variety. There is nothing wrong with that, and Edmundson and Chiarot are big and great in the zone, but with the break-outs and especially on the powerplay, Montreal’s defence has not been able to provide the offence needed in today’s NHL.

Then, the Florida Panthers decided to buy out Keith Yandle.

The contract that the Panthers bought out was pretty big. 7 years at $6.35 million per year. That is a lot for Keith Yandle. But what you get in Yandle is a guy that can carry the puck and quarterback a powerplay and is ridiculously durable. He has the longest current iron man streak, not missing a game since 2009 for a total of 922 games. The longest streak of all time belongs to Doug Jarvis, who didn’t miss a game between 1975 to 1987 for a total of 964 straight games.

Yandle doesn’t exactly not fit with the Canadiens’ current d corps, being 6’1″ and 192 pounds. Yandle doesn’t play very physically (as evidence by his iron man streak), but he has skilled on the powerplay and breakouts. It could be a jolt that Montreal’s powerplay needs. Jeff Petry can play on the powerplay and break the puck out, but Edmundson and Chiarot do not play on the powerplay, and Montreal needs someone that can patrol the blue line on the second powerplay unit.

He did run himself out of Florida, but could find a home in Montreal in a smaller role and more protected minutes. The truth is that Montreal needs someone that can play on the blue line on the powerplay. He is fourth in points among Unrestricted Free Agents (behind Tyson Barrie, Dougie Hamilton and Alec Martinez), and looks to be possibly the cheapest of those options.