Montreal Canadiens: How Much Cap Space Do They Have Today?

The Montreal Canadiens have dealt with a few seismic offseason blasts already.

After taking a run to the Stanley Cup Final, the team announced Shea Weber will be on long term injured reserve for all of next season. They also announced Carey Price would be unprotected in the expansion draft, made it sound like he could miss considerable time, saw him go unclaimed in expansion and then said he’d be back for the start of the regular season.

They also haven’t officially lost Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar yet but it sounds like that’ll be the case. With free agency opening today, you can be sure they will be busy, but just how much do they have to spend?

Trying to replace what Danault and Weber brought to the lineup in the playoffs and what Tatar did in the past three regular seasons won’t be cheap. But someone is going to have to come in and play a top four role on the right side of the blue line and they are going to need at least one veteran centre if Danault and trade deadline acquisition Eric Staal both leave as free agents.

But first, how much money do they actually have to spend? If you open up capfriendly.com and check out the Canadiens page, it gives you an idea. A starting point anyway. According to them, the Canadiens have $10.6 million to spend, but that is a little misleading.

That doesn’t take into account restricted free agents Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Artturi Lehkonen who need to be signed to new contracts. Lehkonen was just given a qualifying offer of $2.2 million so let’s assume he signs that and Kotkaniemi hasn’t really proven himself yet so let’s assume he signs a one or two year deal worth $2.5 million. Ryan Poehling has a decent chance to make the roster as well, but as an RFA as well he needs a new contract. It’ll be less than a million for sure so let’s assume he’s at $900,000.

That brings the total down to just a shade over $5 million, but this includes Weber’s cap hit. Weber will be on long term injured reserve all season, so we can add his $7.8 million cap hit to the amount of money the Canadiens can spend.

That adds up to $12.9 million. That includes a roster of 12 forwards: Tyler Toffoli, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Jonathan Drouin, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Brendan Gallagher, Paul Byron, Jake Evans, Josh Anderson, Artturi Lehkonen, Ryan Poehling and Joel Armia who just signed an extension, five defencemen: Jeff Petry, Joel Edmundson, Ben Chiarot, Alexander Romanov and Brett Kulak as well as Carey Price and Jake Allen in goal.

Obviously, the biggest need is to add a top four defenceman. On top of that, it would be nice to add a second or third line centre so that Evans and Poehling don’t have to play on the third line all season. Maybe they can pull it off but I wouldn’t count on it being a sure thing for next season. Another left winger would be great as well but with news that Jonathan Drouin is returning next season that could be a third line option instead of a top six player.

With nearly $13 million to spend, there is plenty of cap space to fill the three biggest needs in the organization. Whether the Canadiens can get in on the biggest fish like Dougie Hamilton or Gabriel Landeskog remains to be seen.

The one thing we know is that money won’t stop them from trying.