The Montreal Canadiens enter this offseason in much the same way they entered the last offseason, just a bit later.
They could probably use a right-shot defenceman, again. They will be on the lookout for help at forward, more specifically, a second-line centre, again. And their most important agenda item is extending the contract of a rookie phenom, again.
A year ago, around this time, we were attempting to calculate what Lane Hutson's next contract with the Canadiens would look like, because that was the most pressing matter of their upcoming offseason.
We looked at comparable young offensive defencemen, the percentage of the salary cap those players' second contracts took up, the history of the Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes administration — lots of things.
Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that if Hutson were to sign a long-term extension last summer, the floor was probably somewhere around $9.5 million. As it turns out, that is the exact contract the Canadiens signed Noah Dobson to after acquiring him from the New York Islanders less than a month later, and in so doing, established somewhat of a ceiling for Hutson rather than the floor we thought that number to be.
Why? Because Dobson's status as a player closer to unrestricted free agency with a much longer NHL track record, and more projectability as a result, gave him much more negotiating leverage than Hutson, who had essentially none other than what he had just shown in his rookie season.
Of course, that rookie season was very impressive, with him winning the Calder Trophy and leading NHL rookies in scoring with 66 points. So it's not as if Hutson had no leverage.
But the reality is the Canadiens could simply wait a year if they couldn't come to terms with Hutson, and that was something Hughes made a point of mentioning at his season-ending news conference a year ago, noting they had waited until the end of Cole Caufield's entry-level contract before extending him.
All of this is relevant one year later because electric rookie winger Ivan Demidov now finds himself in nearly the same position as Hutson a year ago, with the lone exception being that Demidov finished second in Calder voting this season. And how the Hutson negotiations unfolded and finished should probably serve as more of a guidepost than any player comparables that might be out there in the NHL.
Because the Canadiens have made it very clear they don't care about comparables and percentage of the cap and all the things agents are paid handsomely to care deeply about.
And looking back on it, the fact Hughes said at the end of last season that the Canadiens could potentially wait a year before signing Hutson's next contract was prescient, because waiting is what ultimately got the contract done. The negotiations spilled into the regular season, Hutson's play was affected, there was a ton of noise around him and he ultimately stepped in and made sure the contract got signed so he could put it behind him.
The number for Hutson landed at $8.85 million per year for eight years, well under Dobson's deal, a contract that will kick in on July 1 and bring Hutson a signing bonus of $11 million right off the bat. Hutson built on his rookie season this year and finished sixth in Norris Trophy voting, but he has zero regrets for how that contract turned out, no matter how much money he might have left on the table.
“I wouldn't change a thing, honestly,†Hutson said Monday. “So fortunate that I was able to lock that up for a long time and be here. To be that close (to a championship) and that far at the same time is a great thing. It makes me more hungry and everyone just a bit hungrier to get back there and prove ourselves.â€
No one is closer to Demidov than Hutson. They talk a lot. And the subject of Demidov's upcoming contract negotiations has come up.
“We talked a little bit about that,†Demidov said. “Just saying to each other that it's important to stay here for a long time because the group that we have here is a (Stanley) Cup team.â€
If Hutson had to change one thing about his contract, it would probably be the timing of when it was signed. And when Hughes was asked about Demidov's next contract Monday morning, what he said was strikingly different from what he said about the Hutson negotiation a year earlier, despite the parameters being so similar.
The one major difference is that after September, teams will no longer be able to sign players to eight-year contracts. So there is a deadline of sorts here, and that might explain the increased sense of urgency in Hughes on Monday compared to one year prior.
“There is no doubt we see Ivan as a core player of our team,†Hughes said. “I would imagine I'll talk to his agent in the coming weeks. I think Ivan likes Montreal and likes playing here for the Canadiens. I would imagine — as they say, where there's a will, there's a way — that we'll find a way to come to terms on a contract. … Ideally, we would sign him to a long-term contract rather than a short-term contract.â€
The leverage the Canadiens have built in any contract negotiation is how desirable they have made it to play in Montreal, not only because it is a passionate hockey market, but because there is a belief this team can win.
Dobson felt it. Hutson felt it. Demidov feels it.
“This is a team that's going to win, not only one Cup, but I think a couple more,†Demidov said. “That's my expectation. That's what I see in this team.â€
Management clearly sees Demidov as a player who can help them meet those expectations, and Demidov made it clear he wants this negotiation taken care of this summer.
But it is really what his teammates think of Demidov that is most telling of the urgency to get this taken care of. He can't sign until July 1, but from the sounds of it, Demidov would not be the only one disappointed if it dragged on much further than that.
“I think he can be one of the top wingers in the league,†captain Nick Suzuki said. “Physically, he's hard to play against. He shields pucks really well and wins battles, and those are some of the things that come probably later for younger guys. I think he has a lot of the tools already that are going to make him a really hard player to play against. He's going to be really good.â€
The last player Suzuki said could become one of the top wingers in the league, Juraj Slafkovský, loves what he's seen from Demidov in the last year.
“He's just a great guy and I love his work ethic,†Slafkovský said. “Him and Lane, what they've been doing, I feel like a lot of us should look up to that for sure.â€
Demidov's linemate, Alex Newhook, is probably second on the list of players Demidov talks to most often given the number of conversations they've had on the bench between shifts.
“He's confident, and skill-wise there's not a lot of guys that play with the same skill that he does,†Newhook said. “He's a very elusive skater, a lot of the things that he does with the puck when he's playing confident, he controls the game a lot of the time.â€
We could go on.
The belief in Demidov in the room is basically unanimous. The belief in him from management is unanimous. And Demidov wants to stay long-term.
Should be a slam dunk.
Except there is the matter of fair market value, and the Canadiens' “culture†of taking less than that. Any business would love to create a culture where the workers take less than they are actually worth, but this is not that. The players who have accepted below-market-value contracts to lock in long-term have done so in the hopes of winning.
“He just seems like a kid that just wants to win,†Suzuki said. “I don't really think he's worried about the amount of money that he's definitely going to make. He's definitely a team-first guy. He might have been one of the more pissed-off guys after we lost. He's hungry. He wants it.
“All of us kind of doing that for the team, it helps, it goes a long way.â€
Talk about peer pressure.
But there's a difference between taking less than market value and accepting an unfair contract. It is impossible to guess where Demidov will land on his next contract, but it is probably fair to use Hutson's contract as the new guidepost in the same way Suzuki's contract, signed by Marc Bergevin, temporarily set the salary structure for his successors Gorton and Hughes, with Caufield's and Slafkovský's contracts sliding in underneath it.
If Demidov's contract were to land in the same vicinity as Hutson's — let's say $9 million for eight years, just as a point of reference — it could be well below market value as soon as it kicks in, just as Hutson's already is as it activates on July 1. Our own Dom Luszczyszyn's player card for Demidov is limited because there is only one year's worth of data to go on, and Demidov's performance as a rookie is not exactly a solid baseline to work off.
But still, it's clear $9 million a year for eight years would be an incredible bargain, and definitely more of a bargain than this card suggests.
And if Demidov were to sign for our hypothetical amount of $9 million, that would mean his hypothetical salary combined with the actual salary cap hits of Hutson ($8.85 million), Dobson ($9.5 million), Suzuki ($7.875 million), Caufield ($7.85 million), Slafkovský ($7.6 million) and Mike Matheson ($6 million) — or, in other words, the Canadiens' top three defencemen and top four forwards — would come in at $56.675 million as of 2027-28, when the salary cap is projected to be $114 million.
That would leave a ton of flexibility to overpay for some high-impact finishing pieces.
It is incredible how the Canadiens' “culture†has created the circumstances where each of the six players referenced above took less than they could have had on the open market to do their part to help build a winning team. Demidov will surely feel some pressure to do the same.
The day Hutson signed his contract, his teammates found out about it on the ice at the end of practice. They were not told how much he signed for, just that he signed. When Slafkovský came off the ice and met with the media in the dressing room, he wanted to know the numbers involved. When he heard it was $8.85 million a year, his immediate response spoke volumes.
“That's great,†he said that day. “He wants to win.â€
While that may sound like it would be a form of peer pressure to get Demidov to do something similar, when you hear him talking about his expectation to see the Canadiens winning the Stanley Cup multiple times in the coming years, it's hard not to get the sense he feels no pressure at all.
He just wants in on that winning.
When asked Monday what his instructions for his agent, Dan Milstein, will be, Demidov was pretty clear.
“Just do your job,†he said. “That's it.â€
And that job, he said, is to get this contract done as quickly as possible, and for it to be as long-term as possible.
We'll see what that looks like, but Hughes should rest assured that there is a will, so they will surely find a way.
