Montreal Canadiens Prospect Has Contract Terminated

The Montreal Canadiens continue to look to add draft picks and prospects to their cupboards before the trade deadline.

This is just part of the process for a rebuilding club and the Canadiens certainly fit that description. While they will continue to add youth to the organization in the coming weeks, they just lost one of their defense prospects.

Nicolas Beaudin has been placed on waivers today for the purpose of having his contract terminated. Once he passes through waivers tomorrow, his contract will end and he will become an unrestricted free agent. He was scheduled to be a restricted free agent at the end of the season.

Beaudin is a 24 year old left shooting defender. He was originally drafted in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft by the Chicago Blackhawks. He played 22 NHL games with them and scored six points while showing some offensive potential at the AHL level as well. He was then traded to the Canadiens in October of 2022 for Cam Hillis.

Beaudin scored 25 points in 39 games with the Laval Rocket last season, impressive production for a defender in the American Hockey League. This year. Beaudin seems to have been leapfrogged by a few defenders in the organization, most notably Jayden Struble.

As a result, Beaudin has not been playing the same number of minutes with Laval and has been a healthy scratch on ocassion. In 16 games played this season he has six points and at a pivotal point in his development wants to find other opportunities.

Looking ahead of himself on the depth chart, Beaudin would see Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris and Xhekaj on the left side with Lane Hutson coming soon.

The writing was on the wall for him that he doesn't really have a future with the Montreal Canadiens, so the Chateauguay, Quebec native mutually agreed to part ways with the organization.