Speculation: Would you give Duchene 8M x 7 years in free agency?

[Ozmodiar]

Isnt it whoever has the rights gets the 8 year option?

No

8 years only if on team’s reserve list at the trade deadline.

No easy ‘trade for rights’ workarounds that would, as you can imagine, be abused.

 

[OnTheRun]

Not sure why some act like they can be picky...

The best ufa signed by the Habs in the last 20 years was... Cammalleri? If a top tier player want to sign here, you have to think thrice before saying no.

(But hey, the Habs will probably sign a 2nd/3rd class ufa and give a PTO to random washed up guy anyway, so no point in overthinking this.)

 

[Redux91]

No

8 years only if on team’s reserve list at the trade deadline.

No easy ‘trade for rights’ workarounds, as you can imagine, would be abused.

Learn somethin new everyday

You're more than just a stash after all

 

[Janne Niinimaa]

There is no way he signs for 8 million with the tax rate in Montreal. If he was willing to, I would easily sign him.

 

[Maitz]

Huge LOL at all of you who don’t want Duchene but wants Gardiner

 

[ZUKI]

Not sure why some act like they can be picky...

The best ufa signed by the Habs in the last 20 years was... Cammalleri? If a top tier player want to sign here, you have to think thrice before saying no.

(But hey, the Habs will probably sign a 2nd/3rd class ufa and give a PTO to random washed up guy anyway, so no point in overthinking this.)

Alzner ?

 

[Redux91]

There is no way he signs for 8 million with the tax rate in Montreal. If he was willing to, I would easily sign him.

We have no idea what he wants financially, the tax could be irrelevant to him, he stated repeteadly earlier in the year it wasnt about money (cliche, but cant rule out the possibility of truthfulness), and then re-iterated after getting traded to columbus that there was simply too many question marks in ottawa to want to commit long term despite their generous contract offers

He WOULD like to preferably stay close to his close-to-ottawa home, and ottawa and toronto are out of the running and the next closest place is his childhood favorite team... that's possibly about to open the checkbooks... im just, im jus sayin

 

[Miller Time]

Absolutely not.

He will be a major disappointment to whichever GM/team is silly enough to pay a UFA premium for his contract-year point totals (a year in which his team was a basement dweller & his deadline team has struggled since acquiring him).

 

[tazsub3]

For many professionals it's is more then about money. The last few millions don't change much in life. in today world climate, I would not be surprised if a Canadian player with a young family choses to live in Canada over the us for a couple of millions more.

 

[Janne Niinimaa]

We have no idea what he wants financially, the tax could be irrelevant to him, he stated repeteadly earlier in the year it wasnt about money (cliche, but cant rule out the possibility of truthfulness), and then re-iterated after getting traded to columbus that there was simply too many question marks in ottawa to want to commit long term despite their generous contract offers

He WOULD like to preferably stay close to his close-to-ottawa home, and ottawa and toronto are out of the running and the next closest place is his childhood favorite team... that's possibly about to open the checkbooks..

8 million per year seems fairly low for a centre of Duchene's quality. He can likely sign in Nashville for that amount while being on a better team. Lower end teams can definitely offer more money. The odds seem stacked against us.

But like I said, if he is willing to, then it's an easy yes. Anyone saying no because of his attitude or because we have Poehling or Suzuki coming up are kidding themselves.

 

[Redux91]

For many professionals it's is more then about money. The last few millions don't change much in life. in today world climate, I would not be surprised if a Canadian player with a young family choses to live in Canada over the us for a couple of millions more.

Especially when his RFA contract paid him THAT much already

I completely agree, he just had a kid, its time to settle down, Radulov in 2016 style

 

[Ozmodiar]

I could see something like 6 x 7M.

Around 40M total.

 

[Milhouse40]

For me it's pretty simple:

If he would get here because we make the biggest offer, the answer is no.
If he would sign here because he wants to be here, the answer is yes.

I don't really care about the money at 8M...if that's what he's worth on the open market, then fine, but i won't start a bidding war in order to add him

You can do lateral moves like Galchenyuk for Domi all we wants but in the end, it's a lateral move or if you prefer a very small improvement. But adding a player without dropping assets, it's a huge improvement.

Adding a player like him would have a trickle down effect that would give the Habs major pieces to trade away for other major pieces that we need.

 

[FF de Mars]

I'd give kit to SKINNER, Douche-Chêne is a better Paul Byron.

 

[Tabarouette]

Not sure why some act like they can be picky...

The best ufa signed by the Habs in the last 20 years was... Cammalleri? If a top tier player want to sign here, you have to think thrice before saying no.

(But hey, the Habs will probably sign a 2nd/3rd class ufa and give a PTO to random washed up guy anyway, so no point in overthinking this.)

it goes against the Habs philosophy. In order to finish 9th you'd need to dump a good player to bring him in

what, you wanna win or something?

 

[FF de Mars]

70% no

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

I can totally see why people would want to stay away, and its fair

Im just thinking why not take a stab at it, deal with repurcussions after

I mean who are we really "saving money" for at this point?? McDavid?? Price and Weber are paid.
Panarin fills a type of need sure, i just dont think he's angling towards a MTL destination, not like Duchene

People dont want a free 60-70 pt center who is also one of the best faceoff man in the league because of a leaked uber video that makes him look like a locker room cancer. Its not "fair" at all.

 

[the]

I know we always get those crazy ufa threads wth everybody hoping the prized star player would sign with us but things seems to be a bit different when it comes to Duchene.

Like mentionned earlier, he wants to live in the Ottawa area. His favorite team growing up was the Montreal Canadiens, he wears #9 in tribute to Maurice Richard. We have all the cap space in the world to meet his demands and his playing style fits our team.

Also let’s not forget that he also played with Weber and Price for Team Canada.

For a lot of people who wanted to sign Tavares, Duchene isn’t much of a downgrade. When you get the chance to sign a player of his caliber you do it without hesitating.

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

I know we always get those crazy ufa threads wth everybody hoping the prized star player would sign with us but things seems to be a bit different when it comes to Duchene.

Like mentionned earlier, he wants to live in the Ottawa area. His favorite team growing up was the Montreal Canadiens, he wears #9 in tribute to Maurice Richard. We have all the cap space in the world to meet his demands and his playing style fits our team.

Also let’s not forget that he also played with Weber and Price for Team Canada.

For a lot of people who wanted to sign Tavares, Duchene isn’t much of a downgrade. When you get the chance to sign a player of his caliber you do it without hesitating.

I dont think Duchene and Tavares are on the same tier (which is why he would be paid 3 M less), but I agree with the rest.

Even if Duchene was a bit of a locker room cancer, do people really think it would be a problem with our team considering the amount of leaders we have (Weber, Price, Gallagher, Byron, Petry, Shaw, Domi and Danault)?

The teams he played on preciously were teams without much leadership (ottawa, colorado)

 

[Mike Mike Caron]

 

[26Mats]

Not sure why some act like they can be picky...

The best ufa signed by the Habs in the last 20 years was... Cammalleri? If a top tier player want to sign here, you have to think thrice before saying no.

(But hey, the Habs will probably sign a 2nd/3rd class ufa and give a PTO to random washed up guy anyway, so no point in overthinking this.)

yeah I'm not thinking about it until i hear the tinniest news in the off-season that Duchene may be interested in signing with us.

Either way, he's more of a complimentary piece like Drouin than a main piece. How are we going to get the main pieces is the question. I say sign as many vets as possible and try to trade them for 1st round picks. We missed out on Skinner last summer. I'd go after anyone that will sign with us (Duchene, Johansson, Nyqvist, Dzingle) and try to get good draft picks or left dmen if we end up with a surplus of forwards.

 

[CalgarySnow]

I don’t want him because I just don’t rate him that high. Seems to trade off just a couple of performances.

 

[NobleSix]

I know, I just made a parody of his "Hey, free coffee!" one liner from his Royal LePage radio ad.

Trust me Runner, i've been around these parts long enough to know when you're making a joke

 

[Halakitlikethat]

Yes because I’d rather domi on the wing .

 

[LyricalLyricist]

Easy yes. This has shades of the "I wouldn't touch Ovechkin with a 10 foot pole" thread we had on this forum years ago.