Montreal Canadiens: Colin White Buyout Could Pave Way For Him To Join Habs

The Montreal Canadiens are likely to ship out more players with NHL experience than they bring in over the next few weeks. As a team needing a bit of a rebuild, they will be looking to trade away a few veterans this offseason to clear cap space.

This will also give more room for younger players who would then have an opportunity to prove whether they belong in the NHL long term or not. Players like Ryan Poehling and Rem Pitlick still has a lot to prove and it would be nice to get a longer look at Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Jesse Ylonen at the NHL level this season.

That doesn’t mean the Canadiens won’t bring anyone in this offseason. But if they do it should be a younger player who could be around for a long time. That’s why the Patrice Bergeron rumours from earlier this offseason didn’t make sense. They don’t need players at that end of their career right now.

But a younger player that comes available and has an interest in joining the Canadiens? That’s something that should be considered, especially if a few veterans can be moved out to make space.

It sounds like a player fitting that profile might have just become available. Colin White was bought out of the final three years of his contract with the Ottawa Senators earlier today. He was set to earn $4.75 million against the cap for those three years, but will now become a free agent.

He has been linked to the Canadiens in past rumours, dating back to the trade deadline. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet has mentioned that Habs general manager Kent Hughes, who was White’s agent before taking on his current job, would like to bring White to Montreal.

White is a 25 year old centre who earned his six year contract by scoring 41 points in 71 games in his first full NHL season back in 2018-19. Since then, he has put up just 51 points in 130 games while dealing with a few injuries as well.

Based on that production over the past three seasons, it didn’t really make sense to acquire White at his $4.75 million cap hit. Maybe if the Senators were willing to take back Joel Armia, but even then, White’s cap hit was so high that it wasn’t really worth the risk of taking him on for three years.

Now? Well, White is going to be a free agent. He is on waivers and once he passes through he is going to be bought out. That means he can sign wherever he wants and his previous contract is garbage.

White was a first round pick of the Senators in 2015 and had a great two-year college career at Boston College. He is still just 25 and had a great rookie season, so there is potential for him to bounce back.

He is just the kind of player the Canadiens should look to give a chance to next season. He might have to move to the wing to make it work, but he has played some wing and some centre in the past and could make the transition to wing full time.

It was Kent Hughes who got White the big contract in the first place, so, looking for a second chance, White could look to Hughes again for a new contract. It would be significantly less than the one he was just bought out from, but he is a worthwhile reclamation project for a rebuilding team.

It is definitely something worth keeping an eye on in the coming days, as well as the 14 draft picks the Habs own and all of the other trade chatter going on around the team. Buckle up Habs fans! The next couple weeks are going to be wild.

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