1) Another day, another dollar not being spent on P.K. Subban's looming contract extension. The deadline is August 1st, when Subban is set for an arbitration hearing with the Canadiens.
We've been through enough labor disputes to understand the nature of negotiations. Be pleasantly surprised if they come to terms on a long-term deal between now and July 28th. Be relieved if they settle in the final 48 hours and everyone walks away happy. Be heavily concerned about this dossier falling into the hands of a third party.
2) Lars Eller has to be hoping for a deal ahead of his arbitration hearing on July 25th. He doesn't have a ton of leverage, and he figures to end up with similar figure in arbitration as what he's going to garner from the Canadiens before it.
David Desharnais--who turns 28 in September--signed a four-year extension with the Canadiens at an annual average of $3.5M in March of 2013. He had come off a two-year deal that averaged out at $850,000 per. He had scored 111 points in 178 games up to that point.
At 23, Eller signed a two-year deal with the Canadiens that averaged out to $1.325M per, netting $1.5M last season. To date, Eller's got 103 points in 286 games. Eller's 13 points in 17 playoff games this year will do a lot to balance his spotty production for long stretches of the regular season, not to mention being scratched from the lineup on the odd occasion.
3) Lot of good buzz about some of the prospects who took part in this year's development camp. Here's Martin Lapointe on how it all went:
4) Note that in that video, as has been widely reported, Lapointe admits he's not interested in moving to Montreal to be an assistant coach for the Canadiens. He's very happy in his current position, allowing for his young family to remain in Chicago.
And if you don't speak french, here are a few snippets of what Lapointe had to say
about development camp.
5) Outside of Eller and Subban, the biggest questions remaining are regarding what shakes out behind Carey Price, and whether or not Marc Bergevin will try to add a piece at forward.
It's the dog days of summer, and hopefully these situations heat up over the next couple of weeks so we have more to talk about.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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