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Normally, when free agency opens, there’s a sense of excitement around the league but this year, with the yet again nearly flat cap and an underwhelming crop of free agents, it feels like July 1st will be just another day. Even more so if you’re a Montreal Canadiens fan.
As things stand, the Habs have got an overabundance of players signed to NHL contracts and considering the fact they are in a rebuild, they really should be trying to eliminate contracts not add them. Kent Hughes said in his end of season press conference that he wants his team to be more competitive when the puck drops in October, but that will come from a healthier team and increased roles for younger players, not by adding big names in free agency.
Right now, there is a log jam up front in Montreal, the following players are all under NHL contracts: Suzuki, Gallagher, Anderson, Hoffman, Dvorak, Armia, Dach, Evans, Pitlick, Pezzetta, Caufield, Monahan and Slafkovsky. That’s 13 forwards and it’s safe to assume that new deals will be coming for Harvey-Pinard and Alex Newhook at the very least bringing that total to 15. This leaves very little space for any of the rookies who will be open to make an impression next training camp, the likes of Beck, Heineman and Roy really will have their work cut out for them if they want to make the team, there simply isn’t any room.
On the blue line, the situation is similar. Currently, there are 9 defensemen signed to NHL deals: Matheson, Edmundson, Savard, Harris, Barron, Guhle, Kovacevic, Wideman and Xhekaj. There will of course also be a new batch of hopefuls at training camp, led by Logan Mailloux and newly selected David Reinbacher (although a return to Switzerland to finish school and play a second year in the Swiss league could be the prefered course of action).
When a team decides to start again and tear its old structure down, it’s not immediately free of the players that were put into place by previous management. Before being shown the door, Marc Bergevin made some signings that were questionable at best. The signature of Mike Hoffman at $4.5 M per season was a desperate move and giving Joel Armia a 4-year pact at $3.4 M is almost inexplicable. For Montreal right now, it’s not the money that’s the issue, but the fact that these two players are taking up roster spots which should be given to young players.
Fans are quick to say the solution is simple, Montreal must trade them but that’s easier said than done when neither has done anything to generate any interest around the league. We’ve seen it in the last few days, teams looking to unload big contracts must give them away and add a little sweetener so that their counterparts with cap room indulges them. The Islanders had to give a 2nd round pick to the Hawks for them to pick-up Josh Bailey who they promptly put on waivers for buyout purposes.
If Hughes wants to trim down his roster, he’ll likely have to bite a similar bullet, or he can wait it out and hope some teams come out of free agency looking for warm bodies to fill up their roster. Then, he’ll have to retain salary to ship out the less desirable remnants of the Bergevin era, but that’s better than buying them out and carrying dead weight on the cap for years à la Karl Alzner.
In other words, Habs fans will once again need to be patient this summer, trying to shift goods no one wants is no easy task and Hughes now must do it through no fault of his own. He might be able to move other more desirable piece like Joel Edmundson, Josh Anderson or even Christian Dvorak, but chances are those are not the names he’s in a hurry to get rid of. Settle in Habs fans as we wait out an offseason that could drag on with precious little action happening, there’s always development camp in a few days though.