The Montreal Canadiens were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs back on August 21st. The Habs were a surprise in these playoffs. In the play-in round, the Habs dispatched the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games. The Habs did fall in six games to the Philadelphia Flyers in the opening round but carried the play of the series for the most part. It was a strong showing for the Habs, especially since they were gifted a play-in position by the NHL. The Canadiens were the 24th of 24 teams that qualified. Despite their seed, The Habs took advantage of their opportunity and played very well. After a difficult season, it breathed some new excitement into and around the Canadiens. Still, the Habs strong showing has not been enough to keep the Habs and General Manager Marc Bergevin quiet. Since they last played, Bergevin has been by making trades and signings to improve the team.
Montreal Canadiens Marc Bergevin Has Been Busy
The optimism surrounding the Habs and their playoff performance was the emergence and re-emergence of several players. The biggest story was Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi‘s emergence. The young centers were the Canadiens’ best skaters. They often carried play when they were on the ice and showed an ability to dominate. Their play was so strong, by the end of the playoffs, both players had surpassed Phillip Danault on the center depth chart. Suzuki led the team with seven points in the postseason while Kotkaniemi and Suzuki tied for the team lead in goals with four. For a team that has been searching for a top-line center, it’s refreshing to see the Habs may have found a solution to their issues up the middle.
The other story was the dominant play of Carey Price. The fact that Price played well is hardly the story, he’s one of the best goalies in the entire NHL. What it did, however, was reinforce the need to have Price fresh for any post-season action. The Habs have struggled in the last few years finding a suitable backup for Price. The revolving door has included Keith Kinkaid, Antti Niemi, Mike Condon, Charlie Lindgren, Dustin Tokarski, Ben Scrivens, and Al Montoya. None of these backups have been able to start 20 games in a season (Condon did it once but that was due to Carey Price being injured in 2015). The workload on Price has been an issue for the Canadiens for a while. After seeing a refreshed Price in the postseason, it became even more apparent that there was a need to find a serviceable backup.
The Moves
Since the Habs exited the playoffs, Marc Bergevin has been making moves. Bergevin has acquired a couple of new faces and re-signed a few familiar ones. He brought in a goalie to help solidify the backup role and a defenceman to help shore up some issues on the back end. He also kept a key member of the blue line while also making some depth signings.
New Faces
Marc Bergevin has been aggressive in making moves since the Habs season ended. He wasted no time making two trades to help bolster his lineup. He acquired goalie Jake Allen from the St. Louis Blues and defenceman Joel Edmundson from the Carolina Hurricanes.
Jake Allen
Jake Allen was acquired from the Blues on September 2nd for a third and seventh-round pick. Allen had been with the Blues since 2013. He was never able to completely take over the net in St Louis. He was part of a goaltending platoon with the Blues that saw him sharing the net with Jordan Binnington. Allen has shown he can play well in a backup role. This past year, in 24 starts, Allen posted a 12-6-3 record with a 2.15 GAA, a .927 save percentage, and two shutouts. In the playoffs, Allen and Binnington both made five starts, with Allen posting much better numbers.
Allen does carry a rather large $4.350M cap hit for this year and is set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season. With that cap hit, the Habs are paying their goalies just under $15M. While the number seems high, it doesn’t really upset the Habs salary cap as they have several key players still on their ELC. Having only one year left on the deal is something to note as it seems Allen is not a long term solution. If he plays well, Allen will no doubt look to make more money and a starting job in free agency.
Joel Edmundson
On September 12th, the Habs acquired the rights to pending free agent Joel Edmundson from the Hurricanes for a fifth-round pick. On the 17th, Edmundson signed a four-year deal worth $14M, a $3.5M cap hit. Edmundson is a big, 6’4 215lb defenceman. He plays a physical game and will join Shea Weber and Ben Chiarot in making life difficult for opposing players in the Canadiens zone.
Still, Edmundson’s game is not exactly what the Habs need on the back end. The Habs need a puck-moving defenceman. For all the positives the Habs saw in the post-season, at times it seems like Carey Price had the best breakout pass of all the Habs defence. Outside of Jeff Petry, the Habs don’t really have a good puck-moving defenceman on their roster. It’s been an issue on the team since Andrei Markov left the team in 2017. The issue is two-fold, as the Habs struggle to break out of their zone at times, it also trickles over to the Habs lacklustre power play.
Edmundson will bring more toughness to the Habs roster. He will make the Habs a bit harder to play against and the fans will appreciate his hard-nosed style of play. Still, he won’t solve the Habs issues on the back end.
House Keeping
While Marc Bergevin brought in some new faces, he has also been busy with some internal moves. Bergevin has extended a key player and some depth players.
Jeff Petry
On September 25th, Marc Bergevin announced the Habs and Jeff Petry agreed to a four-year contract extension. It was the first of the potential 2021 free agents the Bergevin acted on. Tomas Tatar, Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault, and Joel Armia are all scheduled to become free agents. Marc Bergevin will have some difficult decisions to make with this group.
Petry seemed like a no brainer to extend. As mentioned, he is the best puck-moving Hab defenceman on the roster. The contract also includes a no-movement clause that protects Petry from the expansion draft next June. Petry has been the second-best defenceman on the Habs for quite some time. Since being acquired from the Oilers at the 2015 trade deadline, Petry has been a solid contributor posting 52 goals and 127 assists in 385 games. It was a solid signing by Bergevin as Petry agreed to a modest raise over his last deal.
Jake Evans
Jake Evans agreed to a two-year contract extension with the Habs on September 23rd. Evans had a bit of a breakout in 2019. He made his NHL debut and took over as the Habs fourth line center once Nate Thompson was traded to the Flyers. Evans also became a mainstay in the lineup during the Habs playoff run. Before being called up, Evans was leading the AHL Laval Rocket in scoring. Evans is not going to develop too much more than a fourth-line player. Still, he brings energy and a bit of a scoring touch to the bottom of the roster.
More House Keeping
The Habs also re-signed goalie Michael McNiven to a one-year contract extension. Other housekeeping moves by Marc Bergevin includes submitting qualifying offers to restricted free agents Max Domi, Victor Mete, Charles Hudon, Noah Juulsen, and Xavier Ouellet.
Marc Bergevin Just Getting Started
While the moves by Marc Bergevin have been solid if the goal is for the team to seriously compete more has to happen. Luckily we are entering the off-season where a lot will be going on. With the draft right around the corner and free agency a few days later, speculation has been running rampant. The Habs are in a good position to make some serious moves. They have just over $10M in cap space to work with. While Habs fans will know that the Habs have had a lot of space to use the past three seasons, but this year presents a unique opportunity. With the salary cap staying flat, several teams need to make moves to create cap space, which means there are a lot of big-name players that should be available via trade. It also means that unrestricted free agents might not have as many options as they would in a normal off-season.
Trades
This might be Marc Bergevin’s best avenue to fill the Habs holes. With a flat cap, teams near or at the salary cap limit need to make moves to clear space to re-sign key players. It makes teams a bit more willing to make a less favourable deal just to clear some money off their books. Bergevin has made a trade like this before, with the Winnipeg Jets. Bergevin used his cap space to take on a bad contract but also leveraged the Jets to include Joel Armia in the deal. In the current landscape, there are more teams that need cap relief. Bergevin has proven himself a shrewd trade negotiator. It will be his best opportunity to improve the roster and fill those gaping holes in the lineup.
Free Agency
Free agency might be a bit more open to the Habs than it has been in the past. The Habs have cap space to use and will not be competing against as many teams as they might in a normal year. While the high-end free agents will make their money, the Habs may be able to sign one with so many teams with the cap crunch this off-season. Still, history seems to show that free agents don’t want to sign in Montreal. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out in an off-season like no other.
Can’t Stand Pat
With the optimism surrounding the Habs after their playoff performance, the Habs need to take that next step. That means improving the roster with high-end talent. This off-season presents a unique opportunity for the Habs to add these key players that could vault the Habs into the next level of teams. Still, Marc Bergevin needs to act. He’s been preaching patience for the past four years but the results need to start coming. It can’t be another off-season working the fringes of the roster. The acquisitions made so far have been just that, working the edges. It’s can’t be another off-season of excuses. It needs to be one of results.
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