Real Contenders

Team: 2021-22 Montreal Canadiens

Initial Creation Date: Sep. 14, 2021

Published: Sep. 14, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Trade idea came from: https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/2780793

$14.9M in cap space for next offseason including Hertl's extension and salary cap ceiling increasing to $82.5M. Habs should easily be able to resign Suzuki and either Chiarot or another top 4LD and Evans. Resigning the current or new 3rd pairing defenseman + depth will likely cost too much for the Habs to be able to retain Lehkonen. He can be moved for some assets. When Caufield's ELC is up, both Byron and Allen's contracts will have expired in addition to the cap likely rising by another million. That money combined, with Caufield's ELC contract free's up $8.155M. They should at least be able to bridge him with that until other contracts expire. Someone like Armia could also be traded if it is needed to free up extra cap space.

I think the additions of Hertl, Dvorak, Hoffman, Savard and Subban takes this team to another level. Perreault and Paquette are nice for depth as well. I don't think losing Weber will be easy to cope with, but I think Savard and Subban can share that workload that he leaves behind. Montreal's forward group is better than last years by a lot in my mind. They might not have the elite level talent of the best players in the league, but their depth is pretty much unmatched by anyone.

I think the east is going to be really tough this year, and Montreal making these types of additions would only make it harder to predict. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I would like MTL's chance to make the playoffs with this roster. I would say that they are better than Boston, Florida and maybe even Toronto. Tampa is a different animal although they lost their entire 3rd line. If this team is in the playoffs, I for sure wouldn't want to face them.

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