The Montreal Canadiens made a big splash in the trade market late last week when they sent Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Mike Matheson and a 4th round draft pick in 2023.
While this solved the problem of Jeff Petry, who wanted out and was granted his wish, it didn’t solve the team’s salary cap issue as much as expected. Petry is a solid two-way top four defender, and he has three years left on his contract with a cap hit of $6.25 million.
The trade shipped out that whole contract, but brought back Matheson who makes $4.875 million per season for the next four years. Matheson is six years younger than Petry, so a little extra term isn’t awful, but the Petry trade only reduced the Habs cap spendings by $1.375 million.
Then they signed Rem Pitlick to a contract with a cap hit of $1.1 million. While that is a great contract for Pitlick, it does leave the Canadiens still in a bit of a salary cap squeeze. According to capfriendly.com, the Canadiens have just a shade under $1.25 million in cap space and need to sign Kirby Dach.
Of course, Paul Byron is unlikely to be ready to start the season and could be on long term injured reserve, giving the Canadiens some breathing room to begin the year. Also, if Carey Price can’t play the team would have enough cap space to sign Nazem Kadri. They won’t, but my point is LTIR is going to rescue them from their salary troubles to begin 2022-23.
That solves one issue, at least to start the season. The other problem is roster construction. Specifically, it is a plethora of wingers and a lack of experienced NHL defencemen. The Canadiens now have Cole Caufield, Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin, Rem Pitlick, Evgeni Dadonov, Mike Hoffman, Joel Armia, Brendan Gallagher, Paul Byron signed to play the wing next season.
That’s nine wingers and we haven’t included Juraj Slafkovsky, Michael Pezzetta or NHL-ready minor leaguers Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Jesse Ylonen. It’s just too many wingers, mostly veterans, for a rebuilding team that is up against the salary cap.
On the blue line, they have Matheson, Joel Edmundson and Jordan Harris on the left side, and only David Savard and Chris Wideman on the right. Maybe Justin Barron can play there next season as well, but he could use some seasoning in the AHL for another year to ensure he is ready for the NHL grind.
It would be fantastic if the Canadiens could trade a winger for a right defenceman who can play second or third pairing minutes next season. It doesn’t have to be a big cap dump, but just a maneuvering on the depth to switch out an unneeded winger for a much needed veteran defender.
What could that trade look like? There are many options, so let’s take a quick look.