2024-25 Canadiens Salary Cap Situation: Summer Of Opportunity

The National Hockey League has announced the 2024-25 salary cap will officially be set at $88 million, a slight increase in projected cap space that should benefit teams like the Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal Canadiens Salary Cap Details

The league had originally suggested an $87,7 million salary cap would be put in place, which was already slated to be one of the biggest salary cap increases in NHL history, and the highest since 2018-19.

At $88 million, teams will see a five percent increase in cap space in 2024-25, with the salary cap expected to rise beyond $92 million in 2025-26.

With the help of the good people over at Cap Friendly, we can get an updated idea of how things are lining up for the Canadiens as they head into the 2024 NHL Entry Draft

The lineup listed below will not be entirely accurate by the time the season starts, but it does give a sense of how much money Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton will have to work with this summer as they attempt to bolter the roster via trades or free agent signings.

To keep things simple, we included players who are currently under contract with the Canadiens, but to avoid a lot of questions we signed Arber Xhekaj to a reasonable, short-term contract extension in our projected lineup. We also gave Owen Beck a spot as an extra to spice things up a little.

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Montreal Canadiens Salary Cap Breakdown

The salary cap expenditures break down as follows for the 23-man roster.

• 12 forwards account for $46,422,500.
• Six defencemen account for $13,088,333
• Two goaltenders account for $4,040,00
• Three healthy scratches account for $2,432,500

Total salary cap expenditures from the active roster: $65,983,333.

To simplify things, we’ll immediately place Carey Price’s $10,500,000 cap hit on the long-term injured reserve, though we should note that LTIR doesn’t remove Price’s cap hit, it simply allows the Canadiens to exceed the salary cap by the amount of his cap hit. For more information, make sure to visit Cap Friendly’s LTIR FAQ.

We must also add the dead cap hits to the equation, which includes salary retentions for Jeff Petry ($2,343,750) and Jake Allen ($1,925,00). Total dead cap hit expenditures: $4,268,750.

There are also overages from the 2023-24 to consider, as players like Juraj Slafkovksy, Justin Barron, and Kaiden Guhle hit various bonus throughout the season. Overages carried over into 2024-25: $1,022,050.

Projected Salary Cap Expenditures in 2024-25: $71,274,133

Maximum salary cap in 2024-25: $88 million.

Projected cap space for the Montreal Canadiens in 2024-25: $16,725,867

There are some other factors to consider, such as the contracts that will eventually be offered to both Justin Barron and Jesse Ylonen. And given the management team has openly stated they’re ready to take the next step, there will certainly be player movement in the upcoming weeks.

But for now, we can safely say the Montreal Canadiens are in excellent financial health when it comes to their salary cap situation. They also have ample funds to entertain all manners of trades, not to mention pursue a free agent or two.