3 mistakes the Montreal Canadiens and Kent Hughes cannot make this offseason

Making an irrational acquisition or two in free agency

There isn’t much projected cap space, and for 2024-25, Habs fans should rejoice. One reason is that the less cap space there is this season, the less temptation there will be for Kent Hughes to make any irrational signing that could get in the way of some high-end prospects. 

That doesn’t mean Hughes won’t fill the bottom part of the lineup with cost-effective names, and it’s a route he should take if there is a vacancy. But he shouldn’t sign such players any longer than a year or two. And they must also be easily movable should he figure to sell again throughout the season and at the 2025 trade deadline. 

In another stroke of luck, the Canadiens also won’t have many vacant spots in the lineup this summer, allowing for increased stability. That said, the only real way Hughes would even remotely come close to making such a mistake is if he got impatient and brought in someone still well entrenched in their prime while moving others out of Quebec.

This would be a waste of money as the Canadiens aren’t in a place to bring in dynamic talent from the outside. Doing so probably wouldn’t put the Habs past the 85-point threshold to begin with, so why bother?