Montreal Canadiens: Way Too Early Predictions for Habs Offseason

Habs Draft Shane Wright.

Okay, let’s start with the obvious. The Canadiens were lucky to win the first overall pick and they will use it to select Shane Wright, who is the best prospect available in this year’s draft.

They are not going to step up to the podium in front of their local fans and announce a big surprise. Everyone has Wright ranked first and the Habs will make the right call and should be excited that they are able to land such a player.

The Canadiens obviously need a bit of a rebuild here. Starting with Nick Suzuki and Shane Wright down the middle is putting them in a great place to succeed in the future.

Sure, Juraj Slafkovky might fit better on the top line with Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Simon Nemec or David Jiricek would give them great depth on right defence with Logan Mailloux and Justin Barron and Logan Cooley would add a nice dash of skill and sizzle, but the right pick is Wright and the Canadiens will officially begin their offseason by selecting him.

Habs Draft Jack Hughes.

While predicting who the Canadiens will select first overall is easy, identifying who else they will draft in the first round is a little more difficult. They have the Calgary Flames first round pick from the Tyler Toffoli trade which will be a late first round pick since the Flames won their division.

The Toffoli trade was one of the biggest made by general manager Kent Hughes since he took over. In some of those bigger moves, Hughes has shown a penchant to go with the guy he is familiar with.

He said when he was hired that he wouldn’t be making a coaching change, but then he decided to shock everyone and replace Dominique Ducharme with Martin St. Louis who had no coaching experience at the pro level. But, Hughes was familiar with St. Louis since they both had kids playing for Northeastern and they spent a lot of time together at rinks over the years.

One of those kids in Jack Hughes, who is ranked by most to be drafted late in the first round of the upcoming draft, or possibly in the second round. Well, the Canadiens have a late first round pick from the Flames and the very first pick in the second round.

If general manager Hughes likes to go with guys he is familiar with, he couldn’t be much more familiar with anyone in the hockey world than his own son.

Hughes, Jack that is, and obviously not the one who was drafted first overall a couple years ago and plays for the New Jersey Devils, is a skilled centre who played his first season of college hockey in 2021-22 with the Northeastern Huskies. The same team that has St. Louis son on it, as well as Habs prospects Jordan Harris (before signing) and Jayden Struble.

Habs trade Jeff Petry for good return.

It won’t be a surprise for anyone if Jeff Petry is traded. He asked to be dealt last season but didn’t get his wish. That was probably because he played so poorly to begin the season that no one wanted him.

Petry was in the first year of a four year extension that pays him an average of $6.25 million per year. He was also being outscored by Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen for the first few weeks of the season.

He finally turned his game around after Martin St. Louis was hired as head coach and he showed down the stretch that he is still a two-way defender capable of playing in a good team’s top four. So, he re-established his trade value.

Now the Canadiens are in a position to deal him for a good, not terrific, return and it will likely happen at the NHL Draft. A team that is losing a top four right defenceman will be very interested in replacing that player with Petry.

A trade with the Dallas Stars who need to replace John Klingberg or the Pittsburgh Penguins who may need to replace Kris Letang is the most likely scenario. Having played so well down the stretch, the Canadiens should be able to get a second round pick for Petry, or possibly a late first if they are able to take back a bad contract like Anton Khudobin’s.

Habs trade Shea Weber for a draft pick.

It would have been unthinkable about a year ago, but it seems almost guaranteed that the Canadiens will trade both Jeff Petry and Shea Weber this offseason.

Petry wanted out early in the season, and though he continued to play for the Canadiens, his time in Montreal appears over. Weber is not going to play again, but that isn’t going to stop the Habs from trading him. They actually came close already.

Weber still technically has four years left on his contract with a cap hit just under $8 million. Since he is not going to play again, he doesn’t need to be paid by his NHL team since the contract is insured. Even if he was to be paid, the final four years on his contract combine to see him earn a total of $6 million.

So, a team could acquire him and not put him on long-term injured reserve and he would eat up about $8 million against the cap. Teams that spend to the cap wouldn’t want this, but it would help a smaller market team reach the salary cap floor. Acquiring Weber would essentially help an owner save $32 million over the next four years.

So, welcome to Arizona, Shea Weber’s contract. There is a ton of value financially for the Coyotes to acquire Weber, like they have done previously with Marian Hossa, Pavel Datsyuk, Dave Bolland and Bryan Little.

Habs can’t unload any overpriced forwards.

While the Canadiens should have no problem trading away Petry and even Weber, they won’t find it so easy to move any of their high priced forwards that are eating up countless cap space on the roster.

Jonathan Drouin has one year left on his contract with a $5.5 million cap hit. While he is effective at times when he is one the ice, he just hasn’t played consistently enough recently to be attractive via trade. Injuries, illness and off-ice issues have combined to see him miss significant time in each of the past three seasons, so he won’t be traded.

Joel Armia played well in the 2021 postseason and possesses a big frame and a smart hockey mind. Teams would love to add him as a penalty killer and depth forward with sneaky good hands, but his six goals and 14 points in 60 games isn’t attractive. Neither are the three years left on his contract with a cap hit of $3.4 million. Nobody is touching that.

Paul Byron has the same cap hit but with just one year left on the deal. He could be a decent depth add for a team looking for speed and defence on their fourth line, but they can find that for much cheaper.

Mike Hoffman signed a three-year contract with the Habs worth $4.5 million per season to be a power play specialist. He scored 15 goals and 35 points in 67 games, while brining very little defensive value. No other team is going to be interested in the last two years of that deal.

A year from now, Drouin and Byron will be free agents and maybe someone will take the final year of Hoffman’s contract. Drouin and Byron could even be trade deadline deals if the Habs struggle again and are willing to retain some salary, but they are not going anywhere in the offseason.

Habs pass on high priced free agents.

Through a combination of the Canadiens deciding to pass, or the Habs not having the cap space to do much of anything, or the best free agents choosing to go to an actual contender, we won’t see any of the biggest free agent names arrive in Montreal this offseason.

Before he was named the Canadiens general manager, Kent Hughes was an agent. Two of his biggest clients were Kris Letang and Patrice Bergeron who both just happen to be free agents this summer and are from the province of Quebec.

Plenty of rumours have surfaced since Hughes hiring that maybe Bergeron would want to play the final years of his career closer to home. Or possibly Letang would like to move on from Pittsburgh and play some home games at the Bell Centre and actually hear people cheering him on in his native language for a change.

But, it just doesn’t make sense for either player, or for the team really. Passing on Bergeron seems foolish, especially since he could come in and be an unbelievable role model for Suzuki and Shane Wright. But do the Habs have any chance of being good next season? And do they have any money under the cap to give to Bergeron?

Only if Carey Price is on long-term injured reserve all season, but then why would Bergeron want to play on the 32nd best team in hockey? If he really wants to, the Habs should do it so he could mentor the younger players. But it doesn’t make the Canadiens a playoff contender so why would Bergeron, or Kris Letang for that matter, have any interest?

Habs sign P.K. Subban to one year deal.

So far we have Jeff Petry being traded away but no big name free agents being acquired. Montreal isn’t a great free agent destination at the best of times, and they were just the worst team in the league.

The Canadiens dealt away veteran defenders Brett Kulak and Ben Chiarot at the trade deadline, and lost Shea Weber after the 2020-21 season. So, if they move Petry, they need to bring in a veteran who can eat some minutes in the short term.

There is an impressive group of prospect defenders on the rise. Kaiden Guhle, Logan Mailloux, Jordan Harris, Justin Barron, Mattias Norlinder and Jayden Struble could all join the team in the next couple years, but there is no rush.

The Canadiens don’t want to rush their young blue liners, but they also have to be realistic in knowing that next season isn’t going to be a year where they contend for a division title in the regular season. So, they need a stopgap.

A player like P.K. Subban would be perfect on a one year contract to fill a void. He has played here before so he knows the market and though he was a bit polarizing at times, he had and still has a ton of fans in the city of Montreal.

He also isn’t coming off the best couple of seasons of his career so he won’t be fending off huge contract offers from other teams. He had 22 points in 77 games this season while averaging 18:17 per night.

Coming in to Montreal to play one last season here would allow him to play a little closer to 20 minutes per night, while the Habs top prospects like Guhle and Barron stayed in the minors and developed at the AHL level for one final season before taking on full time NHL roles the following season.

Habs give Martin St. Louis long extension as head coach.

This one is sort of a foregone conclusion as well, aside from the term. The Canadiens season got off to such a brutal start that there was nowhere to go but up after a change was made behind the bench.

Dominique Ducharme being let go after going 8-30-7 in 45 games was for his own good. Like putting an old pet out of its misery, Ducharme was allowed to put all of the pain and suffering of embarrassing loss after embarrassing loss behind him.

Martin St. Louis was surprisingly hired to replace him, but he showed he was a good choice pretty quickly. After gaining his footing in three losses to begin his coaching career, the Canadiens went on a 9-3-3 run which was about as shocking and unlikely as the Mighty Ducks going from a bunch of misfits to a team capable of beating… Iceland for world supremacy after Coach Bombay stepped behind the bench.

Hired on an interim basis, St. Louis doesn’t have a contract for the upcoming season, at least not yet. He sure will after unlocking Cole Caufield’s offence and turning him from a young player who lacked confidence and couldn’t score into a dominant player.

That alone was enough to garner attention on a long term contract, but the change in Nick Suzuki and Jeff Petry’s games were immediate as well. St. Louis knows what it takes to be a successful offensive player and the Canadiens need a lot of help with their offence.

Habs name Nick Suzuki as captain.

One big question the Canadiens need to answer this offseason is who will be the team’s captain?

With Shea Weber’s career over, and him being traded a couple slides ago, the Habs need someone else to take over the key leadership role. There are plenty of potential suitors for the role, but there is no point in kicking this can down the road.

Many would say that Joel Edmundson is a great choice and he would be. H is a veteran on the blue line, plays the right way by killing penalties, blocking shots, taking on a tough defensive assignment every night and just consistently battling and moving pucks out of his own zone.

Brendan Gallagher is a terrific candidate as well. He fits almost the exact same description as Edmundson above, but he does it all while being about 5’8″ and not 6’5″ like Edmundson. It is hard for a teammate to watch Gallagher battle like a giant every shift and not get involved physically in the game.

But the right player for the role is Nick Suzuki. He plays the game the right way at both ends of the ice and is becoming the face of the franchise as their first line centre. He constantly gets praise from teammates for his maturity and leadership qualities.

He does the little things that leaders do like grabbing the puck from the referee after the game that was Samuel Montembeault’s first career shutout. Or heading to the net to get the puck after Justin Barron recorded his first career point.

With the Canadiens about to embark on quite a youth movement over the next couple seasons, a young leader is required and that player is Nick Suzuki. The only possible argument to not name him captain is to say he’s not ready yet. But his teammates believe he is wise beyond his 22 years.

But that would just be putting off an obvious decision for a couple years. This team needs to be rebuilt around its young players and its young leader is Nick Suzuki. The Canadiens should name him their team captain this offseason.

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