Canadiens Salary Cap Outlook To Impact Buyout Strategy

The Montreal Canadiens want to maximize their cap space in the long term, making the potential for buyouts increasingly less likely.

General manager Kent Hughes has been adamant from the start, they aren’t going to make any moves that could potentially jeopardize their cap flexibility in the future.

It was a stance that was made evident last summer, as the Montreal Canadiens held off on trading Jeff Petry’s $6.25M contract until they were able to move it to a club without any salary retention.

They took back Mike Matheson’s $4.8M deal in the process, but he quickly proved to be a better version of Petry at a fraction of the cost.

Those are the kinds of moves one could expect from Hughes as he looks to free up the Montreal Canadiens from negative impacts on their salary structure.

With the likes of Jonathan Drouin, Sean Monahan and Paul Byron all coming off the books, the process has already begun.

However, with Mike Hoffman, Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak still taking up important cap space for the Canadiens, Hughes’ work is far from over.

Buyouts?

The issue with buyouts is not the immediate impact, but the long-term impacts on a team’s salary cap.

In most cases, 66% of the remaining value of a contract is spread over multiple years, acting as an anchor for a team that is looking to utilize every dollar to be competitive.

The Montreal Canadiens’ most recent buyout, Karl Alzner, is still on the books for the Canadiens until the end of the 2023-2024 season; counting $833,333 against their cap space next year.

Buying out any of Armia, Hoffman or Dvorak wouldn’t make much sense, especially Hoffman, as they only have two years left on their deals;  two years in which the Montreal Canadiens don’t plan on being overly competitive.

Alternative Outcomes

There are other options that Kent Hughes could look at to move some of these salaries.

Hughes expressed his desire to leave one of his three retention slots open, in case a team is willing to get creative leading up to the 2023 NHL Draft.

Players with one year left on their deals, like Hoffman or Joel Edmundson, could be moved with salary retained to save in cap space and return an interesting asset or two.

The Canadiens also have a glut of mid-round picks for the upcoming draft that they could use to entice a team to take off some of their contracts.

It’s far more likely to see the Canadiens head toward the trade route to free up some roster spots to make room for youngsters, thereby freeing up cap space in the process.

It truly seems that the Canadiens have sworn off the idea of buyouts from the start; choosing to take this time to wipe the slate clean and fill the team with value contracts, like those of Kirby Dach and Mike Matheson.