Montreal Canadiens juggling tight cap situation this season

The Montreal Canadiens enter the 2022-23 season with plenty of questions, but the most obvious seems to be how they manage their tight cap situation.

For a team that bottomed out last year, the Montreal Canadiens have made a concerted effort to add genuine talent to the roster and could find themselves competing much higher up the standings than previously expected.

Kirby Dach has a new opportunity to truly establish himself in his new environment after signing a four-year contract, and the Canadiens’ trade for Sean Monahan gives them a player needing a fresh start and a new lease on life.

All of these moves, however, cost money and ever-so-valuable cap space that ordinarily the team would not have available. At present, the Canadiens sit more than $10 million over the currently $82.5 million ceiling but will have one fortunate/unfortunate way of getting themselves just under for the start of the season.

Carey Price may not play this season, and the team have already decided to place him on off-season LTIR in order to remain compliant as his $10.5 million contract puts them above the 10% allowance during the off-season.

Montreal Canadiens cap situation poses difficult question

Having his cap negated would see the Habs sitting just a few hundred thousand shy of the cap ceiling, and presenting them with further decisions that could alleviate the pressure of sitting right at the upper limit.

The Montreal Canadiens may not feel the need to make any further significant additions to their roster this year, seemingly content to land either a lottery pick or a playoff spot when the regular season comes to a close, and their cap situation means they can simply keep Price on LTIR and roll out this current group.

However, if the team performs well early on this season and looks to be mounting a serious playoff challenge, not simply sniffing around the final wild card spot, then the desire to improve the team by the deadline could become more appealing.

This could be a possibility with a healthy Monahan and Jonathan Drouin in the line-up, along with 2022 first-overall draft pick Juraj Slafkovský expected to be involved from the get-go, with the Canadiens having a stronger focus on offense this time around.

With the current roster, the Canadiens could send a few players down to the minors, removing any spares they have available, to provide a further million or two, which could be leveraged to add a player of value somewhere in the line-up.

However, to make any real impact on results, a trade is the more likely scenario so that the Canadiens can offload an existing contract to add another piece to help them on their run, should that occur.

While many would have expected the Canadiens to simply roll over again, content to accumulate even more draft capital and to bottom out in search of a player such as Connor Bedard in next year’s class, the additions made this off-season could mean a genuine effort to compete is made.

Should the Canadiens surprise many and try to return to the form shown during their run to the Stanley Cup just a year prior, the cap questions will linger.