Montreal Canadiens: Three Contracts Habs Need To Move ASAP

The Montreal Canadiens offseason is well underway and it has been anything but boring. Shea Weber was traded, Alexander Romanov was dealt, they acquired Kirby Dach.

Oh yeah, and they selected 11 new prospects including first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky. Filip Mesar was also drafted in the first round, Owen Beck and Lane Hutson are intriguing second round picks and the Habs were just getting warmed up at that point.

After adding a total of 11 players through the draft, the Canadiens got set for their development camp which began yesterday with off-ice testing and workouts. It will continue for the next three days with on-ice practice sessions and scrimmages.

It will be a great chance for fans to get their first look at the newest draft picks as well as other top prospects in the system. There are a total of 40 players taking part in the development camp in Brossard.

We will have to wait a bit longer before we see Kirby Dach in a Canadiens sweater. First, him and the team need to agree on a new contract. He is a restricted free agent and though coming to terms on a deal with the big centre likely won’t be a huge issue, finding cap space for him might take a little tinkering.

Right now, according to capfriendly.com, the Canadiens have a little less than $2 million in cap space. They also need to sign Dach to get to 12 forwards and only have six forwards and two goaltender on the roster, so they are the minimum number of players, but maximum cap space if Dach signs with a $1.9 million cap hit.

They would also like to sign Rem Pitlick and Michael Pezzetta, and have a little wiggle room under the cap as well. How can they do that? They need to get rid of any of these contracts, even if it means little or nothing coming back in the deal aside from cap space.