Montreal Canadiens: Five Worst Free Agent Signings In Habs History

The Montreal Canadiens are usually in the midst of free agent frenzy in the opening days of July. That isn’t the case this year with the Covid stoppages causing the NHL calendar to shift dramatically in the past three seasons.

It is getting closer to normal again, with free agency starting on July 13th this year instead of the usual July 1, or Canada Day opening that always results in hundreds of signings on day one. Some big money is always handed out in the opening days of free agency, but a lot of those contracts end with regret.

Looking at the recent Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning, and not a lot of their key players arrived as free agents. Instead, it was mostly the NHL Draft and a few key trades that put these teams over the top in recent years.

Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog, Bowen Byram and Cale Makar were all drafted by the Avs. They added Name Kadri, Darcy Kuemper, Devon Toews, Sam Girard and Erik Johnson were all added in trades over the years. The only players that signed as free agents were Valeri Nichuskin, who earned $2.5 million last season and other depth pieces like Jack Johnson and Darren Helm.

The Lightning were built similarly. Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat and Andrei Vasilevskiy were all drafted by the team. Ryan McDonagh, Mikhail Sergachev, Eric Cernak, Brandon Hagel and Nic Paul were added in trades. The only signings were depth parts like Corey Perry, Patrick Maroon and Zach Bogosian.

Perhaps the lesson here is to not try and build your team through free agency. Instead, build up assets through the draft and make key trades to fill in whatever pieces are missing from your lineup.

The Canadiens should have learned that lesson long before the Avalanche raised the Stanley Cup this season because of these five big blunders from the past.