So we move on. What can this limping management team do going forward? Whatever word you want to use — rebuild, reset — major change is needed. At the very least, they need a No. 1 centre and, let’s be honest, a No. 2 centre, and a No. 2 defenceman to play alongside Shea Weber.
So how do you do that? One of the biggest problems Montreal faces is the hefty sums of money already tied up in its salary-cap. You start with Carey Price and his eight-year deal that brings with it an annual $10.5 million hit on the cap. Then you have Weber and his $7.8 million cap hit (all the way through to the end of the 2025-2026 season).
Don’t forget about maybe the worst Habs contract in a pile of bad contracts — the mighty Karl Alzner, with four more years at a cap hit of $4.6 million! Then there’s Andrew Shaw, with a cap hit of $3.9 million through to the end of the 2021-2022 season.
That’s $27 million tied up in four players through to the end of the 2022 season — and we’re not talking about using those big bucks on folks like Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews in their prime. We’re talking an awful D-man, a just-OK winger, a very good defenceman on the decline and a goalie who may be one of the greatest, but is injury-prone and is coming off a horrendous season.
In any case, that means you have around 36 per cent of your cap wrapped up in just those four guys (that’s a rough calculation since obviously it depends on how much the cap increases in the coming years). So that severely limits the amount of money the Canadiens can spend on acquiring A-list talent.
With those salaries already on the books, a real rebuild is pretty well out of the question, even if this management team wanted to go that route, which does not appear to be the case. All indications are that Bergevin will build this team around Price and Weber. So it won’t be a rebuild. Let’s use the GM’s word and call it a “reset”.
