MONTREAL – I see how it goes.
The Montreal Canadiens go on a 12-5-1 run to enter the playoff conversation and 120 questions hit my inbox in just over 24 hours.
It’s certainly not a coincidence.
I also wasn’t surprised to see how many people were asking about Jake Evans. He’s the talk of the town and rightfully so. As the 28-year-old continues to have the best season of his career and approaches unrestricted free agency, everyone wants to know if his future is at stake in Montreal.
I still think it’s more likely that it will be, and that Evans will come to terms on a contract extension with the Canadiens between now and the March 7 deadline.
But if I could guarantee it I wouldn’t be devoting as much space to the topic as I’m about to.
This particular question about Evans and the Canadiens caught my eye:
The main reason he did it was the recognition that the Canadiens will have to compromise in some way to get it done.
It’s a given that they won’t sign Evans at any price. Realistically, they won’t be willing to sign him for what he could probably get on the open market.
But if the Canadiens want to keep the player they selected in the seventh round of the 2014 NHL Draft (and I’m 99.9 percent sure they do) they’ll have to give up a few extra dollars to avoid giving up more than one extra year.
If the Canadiens had the majority of the leverage in this negotiation, they would try to convince Evans to agree to three years on a deal that would pay him around $3 million each. That deal would buy them the time they would need to bring in Owen Beck as a replacement, would almost guarantee they would get more out of Evans than they would pay him, and would help them save money to spend elsewhere as they continue to develop into a contender.
But the Canadiens don’t have the lion’s share of leverage.
Evans is, not only because he’s a pending UFA at a time when the salary cap is expected to rise significantly, but also because the Canadiens don’t have a player who could replace him right away, and I don’t think there’s any chance he would. He would sell for so little.
It’s not like Evans should expect to be paid a huge premium for scoring on 12 per cent more of his shots this season than in any other NHL season before.
No team is going to look at that production and pay a lot for it while hoping that’s what they’ll get from him over the course of whatever contract he signs.
But you have to think that at least one would give Evans just over $3 million for a contract that will last more than five years for the reliability he has established since he first entered the league in the 2019-20 season.
Combine that with his penalty-killing prowess, add his ability to play up and down the lineup and factor in the fact that he will have to bid against other teams for his services, and that’s where he’ll likely land.
The Canadiens have the advantage of negotiating with Evans before it gets to that, so they better not waste their time with an offer that’s well below his market value.
Which brings us to Drew’s question.
I say the Canadiens and Evans end up committing to a four-year, $14 million deal before the trade deadline.
They’d be a year longer than they’d ideally want, but a year shorter than they’d likely have to be if they were bidding against other teams for his services. And you’d think that concession, along with a raise that more than doubles his current $1.7 million salary, would be enough for Evans to say yes.
I think he wants to stay. I think he wants to remain a major part of what the Canadiens are building.
But if Evans were to say no to an offer like that, one that shows the Canadiens value him and want to keep him, his future in Montreal could (and probably would) be less than seven more weeks.
I’m going to say that Evans, Anderson and Matheson will all be with the Canadiens at the start of next season.
I’d be shocked if Christian Dvorak were to re-sign. I still think it’s more likely, though not guaranteed, that he’s been traded between now and the deadline, regardless of where the Canadiens are in the standings when they get to that point.
I wouldn’t say the same for David Savard and Joel Armia, who are also on expiring contracts.
If the Canadiens remain within reach of the playoff picture, or if they are sitting in one spot when the deadline comes, I could see them retaining both players.
If so, I could also see the Canadiens exploring one-year deals with both at some point.
Perhaps Savard doesn’t want to accept being an insurance policy next season. Maybe he’d rather have a more secure role than come to Canadiens camp as a seventh defenceman and see what develops. No one would begrudge the soon-to-be 35-year-old if that appealed to him more than the comfort of staying in his home province for one more season.
If that ends up being the case, the Canadiens will thank him for all he’s done and wish him well on the open market.
They’ll also be willing to lose Armia for nothing if he doesn’t take a pay cut to remain on their fourth line.
But if the big Finn isn’t ready to start over elsewhere and is willing to stay in Montreal for less money, the Canadiens would benefit from the depth he offers.
Heck, it would be worth paying for the insurance Armia would provide in that kind of deal in case younger position-challenging players struggle or get injured.
If this decision had to be made today — with the Canadiens exactly where they are in the standings, with what the market would currently bear for Savard, with the inconsistency in Jayden Struble’s play, and with where Logan Mailloux is in his AHL development — I think they’d be waiting.
Savard has value to them at his current position. Enough to ignore offers of third- or fourth-round picks to keep him and risk losing him for nothing in July. He’s brought far more stability to Arber Xhekaj as a partner than Struble did, and he’s giving Mailloux time to continue building the NHL floor that will allow him to access his high ceiling at this level.
I’ve seen some really bizarre assumptions that the Canadiens could get a first- or second-round pick for Savard, who is a sixth defenceman in Montreal and guaranteed to be nothing more than a sixth anywhere else. Maybe they did because the trade market is so thin at the position and lacks big, gritty, experienced right-handed defensemen willing to block shots with their faces if necessary.
But the market was equally thin for those types of players last season and all it gave the then-34-year-old Chris Tanev (who was guaranteed to be a top-four defenseman on any acquired contender) was a second-round pick, a conditional third (which didn’t come about because the Dallas Stars didn’t make the Stanley Cup finals), and prospect Artem Grushnikov, who ranks way down the Calgary Flames’ defensive depth chart.
The Flames retained 50 percent of Tanev’s expiring $4.5 million AAV to get that deal done, but the Canadiens won’t have that option with Savard’s $3.5 million AAV if they retain any of Dvorak’s salary (which they’ll almost certainly have to do if and when they trade him). They only have one retention slot left.
If the Canadiens don’t have to use him on Savard and, by some sort of miracle, can trade a second-round pick for him, I don’t see them walking away from that deal no matter where they are in the standings. If they’re six points behind when the deadline comes, maybe they’ll even take a third-rounder and give Struble and Mailloux some runway to gain more experience.
But I don’t think anything like that is on the table and I doubt it will be at the deadline. If I’m right, I don’t think Hughes and Gorton would be opposed to retaining Savard.
I think that decision will come down to where the Canadiens are in the standings and the health of their roster before the deadline. Hughes has already said on the record that he won’t trade a first- or second-round pick for a rental.
But if the Canadiens are sitting on a playoff spot on March 6 and are missing a key player who is unlikely to return before the postseason, I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility that he’ll check the offer box for a short-term solution.
If everyone stays healthy until March 6, and if the Canadiens are close to or even in the playoffs, I also think it’s possible that he’ll just sit back and do nothing.
I don’t see a reason to mess with a good thing, and I don’t see a move that could make him suddenly turn the Canadiens from playoff hopefuls into Cup contenders.
How about Josh Anderson’s consistency?
Considering how much criticism he received for last season’s struggles, he’s probably not getting all the credit he deserves for this season’s success.
Anderson has played his role almost perfectly every night this season, and his presence up front has literally been a game-changer. Every time the Canadiens need a boost, it seems to come from the big man wearing No. 17 charging into the offensive zone.
People may draw other conclusions, but what we’ve seen so far only confirms what I thought at the start of the season.
I can’t remember which podcast I said it on back then, but I believed there were six really elite teams, three really bad ones, and 21 that were pretty much on an even playing field.
I felt like you could look at some in that big group and say they were better on paper than the others, but the difference between where everyone would end up in the standings would be based on any combination of a good start, good goaltending, and health.
My feeling was that the teams that had at least two of those factors in their favor would round out the playoff picture, while the others would make up the rest of the bottom 16.
As for your other question, I don’t know what a GM’s primary focus should be to speed up the rebuild. But we have plenty of evidence on what to avoid so as not to slow it down.
I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole because this mailbag is already too long and I have a couple more questions to answer.
But let’s go over the decisions the Buffalo Sabres have made over the last 14 years…
I see Ivan Demidov as having the highest ceiling an NHL prospect can have. I think he’ll be a star entering the NHL and I see superstar potential.
It’s exactly how I saw Lane Hutson before this season, and I didn’t think Martin St. Louis would protect Hutson.
I don’t think Demidov is protected either.
Ehlers is very talented, but the Canadiens aren’t looking to simply add talent for the sake of adding talent. They’re trying to build a perennial Cup contender.
Now, I’m not ruling out the possibility that Ehlers undoes his woeful playoff past (he has four goals and 14 points in 37 playoff games) with a notable contribution to someone’s (most likely Winnipeg) streak this year. But even if he does, adding the six-foot, 172-pounder to a mix that already includes Cole Caufield, Alex Newhook and Demidov doesn’t make sense for Montreal.
It’s just my opinion, but I think they’d drive a Brinks truck to Mikko Rantanen’s doorstep if he hit the market.
I reached out to the Canadiens. They say, «Reinbacher is back skating, but without a team.»
He was sidelined for five to six months after knee surgery on Oct. 1, and so far, all indications are that he’s on track with his rehab.