Besides renewing Caufield and Harris,
Habs will gain 20 million plus in cap space with UFA departures. Another $5 million if the were to buy out Army and Hoffman. Caulfield will take 7m and Allen $1 million. I believe Price is done so the approximate net is 12m To 17million. I think the will use he space to take cap dumps such as Zaitsev of Ottawa for prospects or picks. Another brutal bottom 5 finish next year and draft. The team will then try to add free agents in 2025 to accelerate the rebuild . In addition, Mesa, Beck and Roy are the only probable candidates for good nhl careers along with 2023 1st round picks. Thoughts?
No need to buy out Hoffman; his contract expires in a rebuild year. He’ll either be traded with maximum retention for a mid-round pick, or let go in the summer if there’s no taker before TDL 2024.
Armia could eventually be bought out, but then again, no need to seriously consider this option while the rebuild is still on. Trading him for a higher AAV / shorter term player should the optimal way to get rid of his contract.
Amongst the signed players, Edmundson will not finish his contract and be traded by TDL 2024, preferably sooner. Gallagher might very well end up LITRed with Price before long, but let’s keep his 6.5M AAV on the books for the exercise.
As for the renewals, Caufield should get around 8M AAV, Harris under 2M AAV, and there should be a few under 1M AAV players on the roster as well, namely Ylonen, RHP and/or Farrell.
Under these assumptions, the Habs will have over 10M in cap space for 2023-2024, enough leeway to leverage their cap space to bolster the core, especially with another 8M off the books (Hoffman+Edmunson) in 2024, and that is notwithstanding a likely significant salary cap increase for 2024-2025.
Considering this, picking a projected top-6 forward in the top-7 at the 2023 draft and using FLA’s 1st as the main incentive in a package to aggressively pursue a impactful player within the Habs’ new core age window (Dubois or a RHD) this offseason seems wise.
2024-2025 should be a hybrid year in which the Habs put their young core to the test to evaluate the organization’s most dire needs.
Is Montembault G1 material after all? Can the Habs’s young D corps rise to the occasion? Can the combined addition of ELC players (and Dubois?) provide a balanced top-9 to start competing sooner than later?
Once next season will have provided answers to these questions, HuGo will then be able to use the Habs’ crucial 2024 offseason to address the direst need(s).
I for one think Montembault could indeed be a surprising internal solution between the pipes. As for the D corps, packaging one of the young LHD (likely Harris, considering Guhle and Xhekaj appear to be keepers) for a RHD seems opportune. Alternatively, the Habs’ cap space could be use to sign a UFA RHD, the position less likely to be filled internally. As for the forwards, if the Habs can’t acquire Dubois/U25 top-6 forward this summer, his acquisition should definitely be revisited in the 2024 offseason.