Michkov Slow Rebuild

Team: 2023-24 Montreal Canadiens

Initial Creation Date: May 3, 2023

Published: May 4, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Lottery results pending, I'm getting very strong vibes that Michkov is going to be the player MTL ends up with in the draft. He is basically the consensus 3rd best prospect, but I believe Carlsson and Smith are too good in their own right that the teams picking 3 and 4 will pass on Michkov due to the Russian factor and him being signed in the KHL through 2025-26. He might even be available at 6th if the habs drop one spot. Bobrov will know the situation best, which makes me think the habs are one of the teams that would be most comfortable taking a chance on Bedard.

With that said, assuming this does indeed happen then there is no reason for MTL to trade for Dubois. Rebuild for another year, save cap space for when Dubois is a UFA in 2024, unless he's a bargain.

Habs still have $10.625M in cap space they could use to take on bad contracts and stock up on more picks / prospects... they should weaponize that cap space somehow. Not sure what other teams will be looking to do - ideally 1 year deals like they did with Monahan or Dadanov. Let me know if there's contracts to dump.

Despite not trading for Dubois, the habs could still make a big splash if they were to steal Lafreniere from the rangers. They are in serious cap trouble, this offersheet could work. A trade if preferable, but an offersheet is more interesting to discuss so I'll stick with that for now.

Lafreniere had 35 even strength points last season, with PP1 in MTL he would probably hit 50 pts as a 21 year old, definitely worth a 2nd round pick.

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