I feel like there's no way Perry will be overpaid, likely a Spezza-like contract. He wants to play for Montreal and likes it here. Likely a 750k with rotation in and out of the lineup.

I'm not so sure. Armia is a beast on the PK and in the corners, arguably the best on the team, while Ylonen and Caufield are more suited for an offensive role. If I'm MB, I make sure to lock Armia up.

The problem is lineup spots and also the salary cap. We already have Danault, Evans, Lehkonen, & Byron who are PKers, and Suzuki and Toffoli can play short-handed too. Armia’s great, but it might not be the best use of money to spend it on a right-handed winger when we already have 4 or 5 that are NHL ready, plus Perry who would be cheaper.

Although if a combination of Caufield being able to play LW, Ylönen not being NHL ready, or Perry not re-signing happens I’d be happy to bring him back. Although that probably means that one of Allen/Chiarot has to be replaced with a cheap player.

Alex Belzile and Lukas Vejdemo will be held out of tonight's game as well as the rest of the roadtrip until further evaluation. No timetable has been established at the moment. #GoRocket

— Rocket de Laval (@RocketLaval) March 26, 2021

Opportunity for Cam Hillis to try to cement himself in the lineup over the next 3 games.

Hearing #Sabres are working on an Eric Staal trade. Sounds like #Habs are leading contender to get him. Not done yet. Stay tuned.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 26, 2021

Cole Caufield scored 2 goals today, but Wisconsin lost and their season is over.

So at the soonest we could see Caufield and Staal join the team at around the same time a week from now.

So assuming that the habs don’t make anymore trades, the Eric Staal trade essentially just meant that Montréal has around $150K more bonus overages when all is said and done.

Canadiens players sorted by GSVA (over the last three years), with some players they compare with.

B. Gallagher : 2.67 (M. Tkachuk, J. Gaudreau)
T. Toffoli : 2.35 (C. Giroux, T. Seguin)
T. Tatar : 2.20 (N. Kadri, B. Boeser)
P. Danault : 1.76 (R. Strome, K. Fiala)
J. Anderson : 1.47 (M. Foligno, K. Connor)
N. Suzuki : 1.14 (E. Dadonov, M. Hoffman)
J. Drouin : 1.12 (B. Coleman, D. Strome)
J. Armia : 0.75 (O. Wahlstrom, F. Zadina)
J. Kotkaniemi : 0.74 (N. Bjugstad, J. Armia)
E. Staal : 0.67 (J. Puljujarvi, T. Ennis)
J. Weal : 0.42 (K. Dach, D. Kahun)
C. Perry : 0.38 (C. Lazar, J. Leivo)
A. Lehkonen : 0.37 (R. Grimaldi, R. Dzingel)
P. Byron : 0.32 (D. Caggiula, I. Barbashev)
M. Frolik : 0.13 (D. Stepan, M. Geekie)
J. Evans : -0.20 (M. Luff, S. Kuraly)

J. Petry : 2.21 (K. Letang, M. Heiskanen)
S. Weber : 1.81 (J. Klingberg, M. Sergachev)
J. Edmundson : 0.66 (H. Lindholm, K.A Miller)
B. Kulak : 0.65 (A. Edler, H. Lindholm)
B. Chiarot : 0.47 (N. Hague, J. Riikola)
V. Mete : 0.12 (K. Russell, T. Heed)
A. Romanov : 0.09 (E. Brannstrom, B. McNabb)

Now if we look strictly at this season, based on another model :

T. Toffoli : 2.8
B. Gallagher : 1.8
T. Tatar : 1.5
J. Anderson : 1.1
C. Perry : 0.7
J. Drouin : 0.5
J. Kotkaniemi : 0.4
P. Danault : 0.1
J. Evans : 0.1
J. Armia : -0.2
E. Staal : -0.4
N. Suzuki : -0.5
A. Lehkonen : -0.7
P. Byron : -0.8

J. Petry : 4.1
S. Weber : 1.3
B. Kulak : 0.5
J. Edmundson : 0.3
A. Romanov : -0.1
X. Ouellet : -0.1
V. Mete : -0.4
B. Chiarot : -0.5

"Let me think about it and I'll get back to you in a couple of days." - Marc Bergevin, with a big smile on his face, when asked about when Cole Caufield might be signed.

— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) March 27, 2021

I interpret this as he’ll be signed soon

COLE SIGNED

Finally, Laval is seeing success. I always hated to look at the AHL standings the last couple years and see them at the bottom. Good for Bouchard and them

Worth noting that Cole Caufield's Signing age is 20. Meaning that he will burn the first year off his entry level contract with the #Habs regardless if he plays in a game this season or not.https://t.co/mdTtSi7Nzc https://t.co/qc28xPBWgP

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) March 28, 2021

From 31 Thoughts, looks like Lehkonen might be a deadline move pic.twitter.com/uVyrqFhgyM

— Scott Matla (@scottmatla) March 29, 2021

So this is a thing. I’m guessing that he’d be involved in a trade for a defenseman. It’d be really rough to see him go, but I guess we’ll see how it goes. Although on paper I guess it makes sense to trade a guy who’s making over $2 million and isn’t in your healthy lineup, but also isn’t a bad contract either.

The habs are practicing in 2 hours. Then we’ll see whether Armia/Kotkaniemi are out, and whether Frolík will make his habs debut tomorrow or not.

So Armia is the one that’s out. Frolík likely makes his debut tomorrow.

Good thing Kk isn’t out, we would’ve missed him at C

So it's official. Michael Frolík makes his debut.

Yeah, he should do good today

That goal was probably offside, but luckily for the habs you can’t tell whether it is or not on the camera.

We've already scored lol

Great to see Lehky & Byron have strong starts to the game.

Now that is a Brendan Gallagher goal.

Phenomenal effort by Brendan Gallagher to keep the puck in and help create the Tatar goal.