Montreal Canadiens: Five Contracts That Will Be Impossible To Trade

The Montreal Canadiens season is already in the gutter, and has been for weeks, so the 2022 postseason is already outside the realm of possibility for this team.

There is no question that the Habs are going to start selling off players. Those whose contracts are up at the end of the 2021-22 season are surely going to be traded to the highest bidder. It makes no sense to keep someone around in a lost season just to let them walk away as a free agent in a few months.

That last time the Canadiens were sellers, they traded every single possible pending free agent and loaded up on draft picks. Marco Scandella, Ilya Kovalchuk, Nick Cousins, Nate Thompson, Matthew Peca were traded and the Canadiens acquired a draft pick in each round but the first in exchange.

That was Marc Bergevin’s era, but Jeff Gorton needs to take on a similar approach. Anyone who isn’t going to be here long term needs to be traded for the best return possible. Even if a team only offers a 7th round pick for Cedric Paquette, they may as well take the pick since they have no reason to re-sign the player beyond this season anyway.

With the way the Canadiens team is structured, and especially the way it is currently playing, the team needs to consider trading just about anyone. Sure, it is easy to trade Ben Chiarot since he will get a good return and he is a free agent in July. But this team needs a deeper reboot than just moving out pending free agents.

Dangling players like Tyler Toffoli, Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin, and even Christian Dvorak who was recently acquired needs to happen as well. I’m not saying they’ll all be dealt, but putting everyone on the market to see what kind of offers they receive should be happening already.

Basically, anyone on the roster should be moved for the right package of picks and prospects.

But, these five contracts are completely untradable for the Canadiens right now.

Mike Hoffman

It would be a bad look if the Canadiens were to trade away Mike Hoffman this season. He just signed a free agent contract with the Habs last offseason, and he came with one of the biggest cap hits a free agent has agreed to in Montreal for the past few years.

If the Canadiens trade him now, it might make future free agents wonder about whether they should commit to Montreal.

Hoffman did commit to Montreal, to the tune of $4.5 million per year for three years. He was brought in to try and breathe life into an awful power play, but the Habs are still terrible with the man advantage. In fact, they are the worst team in the league on the power play at just 12.5%.

Now, that can’t all be blamed on Hoffman, this team was horrible on the power play long before he arrived. But the goal scorer only has four goals in 19 games. He scored all of his goals in a five game span in late October and has not found the back of the net again since. Goal scorers are all streaky to a degree, but Hoffman has only had one brief hot streak so far.

Hoffman is 32 years old and has two more years left on that $4.5 million cap hit after this season. He is a skilled player and can score goals in bunches as he has shown throughout his career.

But a goal scoring winger has to score some goals before another team would be interested in acquiring him. Right now, Hoffman is not doing that as he is goalless in his last 12 games while playing on the top line and first power play unit.

That is not an attractive trade piece at the moment.

David Savard

David Savard was traded for a first round pick and a third round pick just last season, so he should have a lot of trade value, right?

Well, no. When Savard was traded from the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Tampa Bay Lightning, part of the reason he was so sought after after was the fact he was on an expiring contract. The Lightning needed a defensive defenceman who was a veteran and could kill penalties, but they also didn’t want to add any future salary cap.

David Savard was the perfect fit. Now, he is on a four year contract with a cap hit of $3.5 million. It’s not the actual salary that would scare anyone off. There is no question Savard is worth that much money this season. He brings a defensive presence and can kill penalties which every team values.

But, he is 31 years old and will still be on this contract when he is 34 years old. Will he still be a trusted defensive presence in 2025? Hard to say, so the contract suddenly comes with a lot of risk. If he were on an expiring deal this year, the Canadiens would be hoping to get a high draft pick for him.

However, his contract makes him impossible to trade right now and that’s not even a big deal. He is playing fine and doing what the team expected of him when he signed here last offseason. It is not a problem that the Canadiens will have a hometown veteran sticking around for the next few years through a rebuild.

Brendan Gallagher

Brendan Gallagher was on one of the league’s biggest bargain contracts for nearly half of a decade. He signed a six year contract with a $3.75 million cap hit that began in the 2015-16 season.

The problem for Gallagher is he started to outperform that payday almost immediately after he inked the new deal. He developed quickly into a trusted two-way player who was capable of scoring 30 goals and playing in all situations. When he was linked up with Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar they were perhaps the best defensive line in hockey and quite capable of scoring as well.

But now Danault and Tatar are gone and so is Gallagher’s production.

The scrappy winger has scored just four goals and ten points in 23 games this season. That has him on pace for 14 goals and 36 points over a full 82 game season. That’s about half the number of goals he was producing over the past four seasons and just a big step back offensively overall.

The timing couldn’t look worse as he is in the first year of a six year extension that comes with a $6.5 million cap hit per season.

Teams might be able to overlook a slow start to a regular season, especially on a brutal team, but Gallagher’s production was not good in the postseason last year either. Sure, he played a tough shutdown role and did shut things down defensively, but he had just two goals and six points in 22 playoff games for the Canadiens in 2021.

In his career, he has 31 playoff points in 71 games.

Gallagher is 29 years old so he will turn 35 just before this contract expires. He isn’t old yet, but he does have a lot of miles on that chassis of his. Gallagher really does go to battle every night in the corners and in front of the net and has had a number of nasty injuries from blocking shots and getting hit with pucks while standing in front of the net.

He doesn’t look great at 29. Will he look any better at 32, 33 or 34? Probably not so teams will not go anywhere near this contract.

Joel Armia

Perhaps you were expecting to see Carey Price on this list somewhere? He does have the largest cap hit of al players on the Canadiens, but I think trading him would be easier than trading these five players. Price showed last season he can help carry a decent offensive team to a Stanley Cup Final. There are definitely teams out there that think they can win the Stanley Cup with Price in their net.

Does anyone out there think Joel Armia is the missing piece in the Stanley Cup puzzle? If so, they should not be working for a National Hockey League team.

Armia is a smart, defensive winger who has pretty good hands with the puck on his stick. He can steal the puck from an opponent with great frequency and is a penalty killer who can be trusted to play defensively against anyone in the league.

But, he doesn’t score. He has one goal this season and five points in 29 games. Last season he had seven goals and 14 points in 41 games. So, he has 19 points in his last 70 regular season games.

Armia did play well in the postseason on a fourth line with Corey Perry and Eric Staal. They were all big, smart and could cycle the puck around the offensive zone, using their size to maintain puck possession and wear down the opposing defenders.

But that’s where Armia fits on a good team. Fourth line winger and penalty killer.

You can find good fourth line wingers and penalty killers very easily, which is why you shouldn’t pay one $3.4 million per year on a four year contract. But that is what Canadiens former general manager gave to Joel Armia.

In the first year of that contract, Armia is producing the worst offensive numbers of his career. If anyone needs a quality penalty killing winger to plug in on their fourth line, they will look for someone who has less than three more years on their current contract.