The Montreal Canadiens new general manager Kent Hughes met with the media for the first time yesterday.
He said a lot of the things you would expect a general manager to say on their first full day on the job. He needs time to get to know everyone and get acquainted with things. They will be focusing on adding staff like an assistant general manger. He is excited to be here. This the first day of a great adventure.
Blah blah blah. At one point he did mention there is a definite need for changes, but he stopped well short of suggesting whether there would be huge changes, like a total rebuild, or if the changes will be more subtle.
Many fans are calling for a total rebuild. Bring in the, uhh, big truck with the ball that swings around, and knock this roster to the ground. Sell off all the veterans and purposely tank for the next couple seasons to try and land a couple of very high draft picks. Adding a potential top pairing defender like Simon Nemec at the upcoming NHL Draft and Connor Bedard a year later to join with Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kaiden Guhle, Alexander Romanov and Mattias Norlinder would make for a potential speedy rebuilding process.
But that wold require selling off veterans who help NHL teams win games. The problem with the Canadiens roster, is it would be very difficult to trade any of these veterans.
It’s not that they aren’t good or wouldn’t fit well on another team right now, but they are mostly middle six forwards who are signed for a very long time. Teams don’t like to acquire players that are signed until they are 36.
If you want to rebuild a roster, you trade away veterans for young players and draft picks. But what older veterans can the Canadiens trade right now?
Carey Price is 34 years old but he is signed for four more years at $10.5 million per season. Who can take that contract on in a trade? He hasn’t even played hockey this season.
Neither has Joel Edmundson who is 28 year old steady defensive player but he has two more years after this one with a $3.5 million cap hit.
Jeff Petry is 34, but he is in the first year of a four year contract with a cap hit of $6.25 million.
David Savard is 31 and has three more years on his contract after this season with a cap hit of $3.5 million.
Josh Anderson is a good player that a contender would love to add to their team, but he has five more years at $5.5 million after this season. He is only 27, but has a history of injuries and plays a very physical style. Do you want to roll the dice for another half decade of health?
Mike Hoffman would be a decent deadline pickup for a team needing power play help, but the 32 year old has two more years to go on his contract after this season at $4.5 million.
Joel Armia would be a good penalty killing and potential scoring piece for a contender after last year’s postseason run as a fourth line winger. But the 28 year old has three more years after this one with a $3.4 million cap hit.
What playoff team wouldn’t want Brendan Gallagher on its roster heading into a physical series? Well, anyone who knows they would have to hang on to the 29 year old for five more seasons after their 2022 playoff run with a $6.5 million cap hit.
If all of these players had contracts expiring at the end of this season or next, the Canadiens could trade a few of them for first round picks easily. But other teams are going to be so wary of taking on that much term in deals.
It sounds odd, but having to keep a player like Gallagher for a long time actually reduces his trade value greatly. If his contract ended in 2023, teams would be lining up to trade for him. But it ends in 2027 and he will be 35 then. Do teams really want to have him eating up $6.5 million of cap space in 2026-27?
The easy players to trade are the ones on an expiring contract. But moving out Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, Mathieu Perreault, Chris Wideman and Cedric Paquette isn’t going to set this team up well for the future. If all the Habs do is sell off expiring contracts, they will head into next season with a lineup that includes:
Toffoli Suzuki Caufield
Drouin Dvorak Anderson
Hoffman Evans Gallagher
Byron Poehling Armia
Edmundson Petry
Romanov Savard
Clague (RFA Niku (RFA)
Price
Allen
That’s a slightly worse version of this year’s team. However, if that lineup were to stay healthy they would win a lot more games than this year’s team. Not nearly enough games to compete with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins or Toronto Maple Leafs, but enough wins to jump ahead of ten or 12 teams in the NHL standings.
That would just mean they miss the playoffs again but are nowhere near picking first overall.
That would be the worst case scenario for this team next season. But how do they rebuild, forget worse, when so many of their veterans are locked up to long term contracts?
It will be interesting to see how Hughes and Gorton navigate a rebuild, since they would need to sell a couple of decent veterans like Hoffman or Armia for very little return just to get rid of the contract.