Canadiens: Three Hot Takes From Shea Weber Trade
The Montreal Canadiens finally managed to pull the trigger on a trade that Kent Hughes has been attempting to pull since his first days as General Manager – ridding of Shea Weber’s contract.
We’ve been talking about the possibility of trading Weber’s contract all season long, with the Arizona Coyotes being the most logical candidate. Turns out we’ve been swerved as the Vegas Golden Knights decided to take on Mountain Man’s contract and sent us Evgenii Dadonov our way.
The trade itself is going to have three serious effects on the Montreal Canadiens as a whole. Some more obvious than others.
Carey Price Can Safely Be Put On The LTIR
Dan Kramer, who some may know on Twitter as a Montreal Canadiens prospects guru for various platforms, found a gem of an explanation regarding long term injury reserves via Puck Pedia:
I see a lot of confusion on LTIR, and as it relates to #Habs Weber trade. The below is probably the cleanest explanation. YES - you can exceed the cap by amount of an LTIR player’s cap hit, more or less ignoring it. BUT - you can’t accrue/bank cap space while using LTIR space. pic.twitter.com/Q21xThejSV
— Dan Kramer (@DanKramerHabs) June 16, 2022
Kent Hughes did go on record saying that he’s going into the offseason not knowing exactly what the status of Carey Price is. Going as far as as saying that he’s going to be working around the cap as if Price was going to be the starting goaltender on opening night.
Kent Hughes has accepted he likely won’t have clarity on Carey Price’s playing situation until closer to training camp or perhaps even later. So, he’ll have to go about his off-season business planning for Price to be on his active roster… pic.twitter.com/BLVR3DVOAL
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) June 17, 2022
We’ve heard a similar speech with Shea Weber last season. This is management being cautious with their words as they are not legally allowed to say that neither Weber nor Price is retired at this point. Price is still at the stage where he is looking at options and being evaluated by doctor’s, but it won’t come as a shock to anyone when it will be announced in the offseason that he will start the season on the LTIR and that Samuel Montembeault will be signed to a contract extension.