As the Montreal Canadiens cleared their lockers on Friday, the players spoke to the media one last time before heading for their Summer holidays. For some, there’s nothing to worry about; they already know they’ll be back next year since their contract isn’t over. The situation is slightly different for center Christian Dvorak, who just played the last year of his six-year contract, with a $4,450,000 cap hit.
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Of course, his future was what the press wanted to talk about, but he refused to discuss the matter, except to say:
Yeah, I loved it here. It was a great season and a great group to be a part of. I love the guys, and I love playing here. We’ll see what happens.- Christian Dvorak on the possibility of signing a new contract with Montreal.
About his season, he agreed that he was in the right chair this year, adding he had developed great chemistry with Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson, the two players he spent most of the season playing with.
The pending free agent also agreed that Montreal could become an interesting destination for free agents:
Yeah, it definitely could be. I mean, winning certainly helps, and things are on the up here. The future’s bright, and there are a lot of great players and talent. It's a great place to play, and the fans are awesome, so yeah, for sure.- Dvorak on the possibility of Montreal attracting more free agents.
While it does sound like Dvorak would like to stick around, I think this will be the end of the line for him in Montreal. He was undoubtedly a good teammate and appreciated by the team leaders; after all, he was part of the “circle of friendship” celebration after wins. He was Cole Caufield’s roommate, but hockey is first and foremost a business.
Since Kent Hughes has already signed Jake Evans to a contract extension and Dvorak doesn’t play a major role in any special units, I struggle to understand how the GM could decide to keep him.
The next step in the rebuild has to be introducing young players to bigger roles on the team so that they can develop properly and do it in the right chair, so to speak. Oliver Kapanen, now with an extra year of pro hockey in Sweden under his belt, could be ready for more, and the same is true for Owen Beck. Even Florian Xhekaj could be in the conversation to make the jump to the big league.
Dvorak’s acquisition was a panic move from Marc Bergevin after losing Philip Danault to free agency and Jesperi Kotkaniemi to an offer sheet. For his first three seasons in town, he failed to meet expectations that were too high and struggled with injuries. In a different role this year and playing a whole 82-game campaign for the first time in his career, he looked much better, but he wasn’t playing a role that’s impossible to replace.
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