At $6mil AAV for 5 years... I'd trade him. Max cap hit I'd go to is $5mil AAV and max term 3 years. Any higher and the risk (injury history can't be ignored) becomes too high.

But yeah, I'd be happy with a Monahan extension.

Or we could use the 1st we get to move up a spot or two in the draft, idk just an idea. habs need an elite forward bad.

Thanks for the response.

Why do you care about the 1M more? Who do we need that cap space for?

3 years is never gonna happen. The guy took a 1 year deal to get a 5-6 year deal. We have to come to terms with our fear and desire.

Can't we do both? We have 4 x 1sts and 4 x 2nds over the next 3 years. Surely that's enough to move up if we want it bad enough?

I totally get your point, I've been saying we can't trade Monahan without a NHL center coming back, or in another deal because of how weak we are down the middle rn. The best scenario is we trade him and then he signs with us this summer, that's quite the contract you gave him, idk about giving him that much term and money but something in the 3 year 4 million range could be enough, all depends on what other offers he gets and how much he wants to be in Montreal.

I'm also hesitant on giving Reinhart that much off of one incredible season, I looked at him as an option for 6-7 years at ~7 mil before the season started but his play has upped that salary significantly. I like the player but that's a risky contract.

Monahan also has an history of injuries so I wouldnt commit and he'd prob want to cash in with how hes done so far this year, he'd want the max term and max money imo.

12/3 will never happen. He's playing like a top 6 forward, he needs to be paid like a top 6 forward.

Reinhart is not a flash in the pan. His play has been at a new tier since 2021-22 where he hit 82 points. His play this year, his playoffs last year... He's the real deal. Maybe there was an injury or something during the reg season last year which is where he dipped, but he's still gonna average 1PPG over 3 regular seasons in a row.

The injury history with his hips, I think is over.

The broken foot last year, that coulda happened to anyone.

I didn't realized Monahan was on a 60 point pace until after i posted this, I'd be fine with 5 mil per but anything more I'm not sure, he likely doesn't produce as much when the younger guys are ready and healthy

Do you realize who his linemates have been 5-on-5? Gallagher, Pearson, Armia, Anderson, Pez, Evans... Who is he supposed to pass the puck to?!

With a healthy Dach & Newhook, he would be scoring a lot more 5-on-5.

But he probably wouldn't get top powerplay minutes, not saying he goes from 60 points to 35 but maybe in the 45-50 range

I disagree. He's been great on the PP. More importantly, he would score a lot more 5-on-5 points which would make up the difference. He's still be a 60 pts player in my opinion.

This years is celebrini and the rest

Demidov, Eiserman, Catton, Heleinus, Lindstrome
They re all good player

2 at 10 will be team preference

100% agree. Those who think Lindstrom will hop right into the NHL and start throwing his weight around need to remember Slafkovsky's 1st 60 games. He's gonna get rocked more than a few times.

OR,

resign him in the summer - after trading him for a 1st round pick.

Like Plekanec - if he's interested in winning a cup and signing in MTL next year... nothing is impossible. But i'm not matching a 6M$ offer.

If he stays its for cheap. Habs need to tank this year.

We're not getting Celebrini... and we're already picking 7th or whatever. Not much difference with the other 9 top 10 guys.

If I'd have to budge on either the cap hit or the term, I'd rather give him $6mil for 3 years than $5mil for 5 years+. I wouldn't budge on the 3 year max term.


A lot can change in 3 years, let alone 5-6 years. Heck 3 years ago Gallagher was one of the best 5on5 players in the league... look now. And the Habs will eventually want to compete, so cap space will be much harder to come by at some point.
Again, I'd want to re-sign Monahan, but I'm not going to go head over heels paying an insane premium to try and have him stick around. Especially when the Habs could get premium assets for him that could be used to actually get what the teams needs most, elite talent.

In 3 years Gallagher & Anderson come off the books. We'll be flush with cap space

Plz let me dream till then haha 1% is a chance

Frankly if Monahan can still play hockey in 3 years I'll be surprised. We've been lucky for him to have held up as well as he had this year, and with his play and market conditions being what they are this year we will not have a better window to maximize his value. By all means, we can try to resign him in the offseason, but it'd be asset management malpractice to not get a haul for him at the deadline

You don't know that. Guhle and Slaf will have bigger contracts by that point. Dach and Matheson will be on expiring contracts looking for a raise. A LOT of Habs younger players ELCs (Beck, Roy, Hutson, Reinbacher, Mailloux, etc.) will be expiring or expired and could be in for significant raises if they hit their potential. All of that isn't even considering any other additions to the roster from now until then.

I'd be happy with Monahan sticking around. but committing LONG term with him just doesn't make sense.

I would only sign Monahan to contracts of 2 years in term from this point forward. His hips are fine for now, but there's a time limit before he ends up like Byron.
This may be his last realistic chance to win a cup, assuming he wants to maximize earnings for the remainder of his career.
He came back to establish his value to a contender with an understanding he would be traded. That is happening regardless.
If he wants to come back and take short term deals for the rest of his career, he's welcome. We can pay him higher than he might get elsewhere for a time, but I wouldn't budge on the term.

The difference is what are they wanting to draft. If they want to draft a forward(currently 6 on top 10), or defense(currently 4 on top 10). If you want a top D you want to be in the top 5(since Celebrini will 99.99% go first) to make sure you are drafting them.

Also, they can drop by 2 spots by getting leaped frog by teams with lower odds of winning lottery.

Personally, I will really want to resign Monahan because he is a player that we really need. But the problem is if we decided to not trade him away and resign him, but after 24-25 games next season, we got once again an injury on his hip, what whe will gonna do ?

I'm rather to really maximise his value at the TDL when he is healhy.

Monahan is a good 3C and helped a lot the young core of MTL. However, don’t fall in love with players like Bergevin did, espicially during a rebuild.

Monahan is good at the moment on the PP1 but next year the team will clearly want to put Dacher on this PP1 instead of him. He would lose quality time on the poweplay. Next year, Hughes will want to showcase Dvorak and Armia to sell at their highest value comes TDL2025. If you have Monahan in the lineup, he will steal a lot of quality minutes from them.

The 1st pick they will acquire (if they don’t flip it come draft day) might not pan out but it is the principle of a rebuild. If you have more lottery tickets, youhave more chance to win the jackpot. A late 1st can become Pastrnak, Tage Thompson, Debrincat, Aho, role players or non-NHL players. You mentionned that the 1st pick would not be as good as Monahan in three years. Why that window? MTL have 4-5 years still of bad contracts and Suz-Caufield still have 7 years on their contracts. HuGo probably planified that in 4 or 5 years from now the group that they put together will be ready and will be contenders.

Maybe Bergevin regets that he didn’t sign Danault but i think that he regrets a lot more that he didn’t trade Gallagher, Armia, Petry and Price when they were at their max value. Instead, they signed those players to reward contracts like you want to do with Monahan. It is absolutely not a disrespect to those players. Simply, you build a group of players with the same age. When they reach 28-30 years old, if your group is constantly contending you can still push for a year or two but you prepare yourself to return in a rebuild sooner rather than later.

You mentionned that Crosby and Malkin were still good at 32-34 yo. PIT is a good example. PIT won the cup early in their rebuild and carried the core until they were 28-30 and won two other cups. After that the best would have been to start a rebuild and trade the core for future assets. Instead (certainly in part because of the ownership), since the last cup, they are a middle of the pack team and one of the worst prospect pool in the league.

In summary, in the next years, you’ll see Monahan, Matheson, Savard get traded and it is what’s best for the team and the future. Their visit to Montreal will be greatly appreciated and useful. The transmission of their leadership to the core group of players may be one of the reasons why MTL will win a Stanley Cup. However, we need to be able to trade them when the time comes.