Montreal Canadiens: Critical Dates For NHL Teams

The Montreal Canadiens are in the midst of a busy part of the offseason. The NHL Draft was just a few days ago, and free agency is right around the corner.

Those aren’t the only things going on inside the National Hockey League these days. Teams have plenty of other key dates to circle on the calendar in the coming days… well, hours really.

Monday, July 11th: 5:00 PM EST is the deadline to extend qualifying offer to RFAs. The Canadiens will surely send a qualifying offer to Kirby Dach and Cayden Primeau but how many others? Rem Pitlick, Michael Pezzetta, Kale Clague, Sam Montembeault, Nate Schnarr, Joel Teasdale, Josh Brook and Corey Schueneman are all RFAs this summer.

The Canadiens either have to give them a qualifying offer, which is either a slight raise if they were making less than a million bucks, or a new contract that matches their salary from last season on a one year deal. Teams can only have 50 players under NHL contracts at any time so it will be interesting to see if players like Teasdale, Brook and Clague get a contract or are released and become unrestricted free agents this summer.

Tuesday, July 12th: RFAs can be contacted by other teams to negotiate offer sheets.

Ahhh, the offer sheet. It lay dormant for years until Marc Bergevin unleashed its wrath on the Carolina Hurricanes. They responded in kind. Will the Canadiens go that route again? Probably not, but with players like Matthew Tkachuk available, somebody might. If the Canadiens really want to be hated they could offer sheet Rasmus Sandin at an inflated rate to mess up the Toronto Maple Leafs payroll, but I don’t think Kent Hughes is that kind of guy.

Tuesday, July 12th: 5:00 PM EST is when the first buyout window closes. Could the Habs use this to get out from the final year of Paul Byron’s contract? If they can’t move out a contract via trade than maybe? But he isn’t eligible if he is injured.

Tuesday, July 12th: 11:59 PM EST is the deadline to sign a pending unrestricted free agent to an eight year contract. This doesn’t really affect the Canadiens this year, but it will be worth keeping an eye on players like Johnny Gaudreau to see if he gets the max-term deal.

Wednesday, July 13th: Noon EST is when the free agent frenzy begins. Players on expiring contracts are free to sign wherever they wish. Again, I don’t expect the Habs to be all that aggressive in free agency this year, but if they trade a couple of veterans out to clear cap space, they could dip a toe in.

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