Kent Hughes finally inked Zach Bolduc to a new contract, and while it's a reasonable deal, it might not be ideal term wise.
Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes might not have been very active this offseason, in terms of results anyway, but over the last weekend, he’s hit a couple of home runs. After announcing that they had signed free agent Chris Kreider to a one-year deal on Saturday, the Habs then announced on Sunday that they had signed Zachary Bolduc to a new four-year contract.
In an ideal world, the term would have been just a tad shorter because this four-year contract walks the winger straight to unrestricted free agency, and in the past, Hughes has been careful not to do that with the players coming out of ELC that he didn’t sign to a long-term deal. Both Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook signed four-year deals, but they still reached RFA status.
However, because the contract didn’t include any UFA years, Hughes kept the cap hit at a reasonable level. Given how much the salary cap has risen and will keep on rising, a $4.2 million deal is more than fair for both sides and is pretty much what was expected. In early August, when the San Jose Sharks signed Colin Graf to a three-year deal with a $4.25 cap hit, we thought it was a fair comparable for Bolduc and ventured a guess that the cap hit on his new deal would land somewhere between $4 and $4.5 million.
Bolduc’s new deal gives him ample time to show the Canadiens what he’s made of and why they need to add him to their long-term core. If he rises up to the challenge, there’s no doubt that Hughes will be ready to sign him to an extension long before he hits the free agency market. If Hughes isn’t convinced by then, he’ll likely move Bolduc via trade rather than let him walk as a free agent at just 27 and still in his prime. There’s a long time to go before both parties have to worry about that, though.
Now that Kreider and Bolduc are both on board, the Canadiens forward group is looking pretty strong and, on the eve of training camp, Martin St-Louis must be foaming at the mouth thinking of the possible combinations. Kreider’s arrival means the Canadiens will finally be able to ice a real top six, which should ease the pressure on the top line, giving Suzuki’s line a bit of breathing room.
If it were up to us, the forward lines would look like this on opening night:
Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Juraj Slafkovsky
Chris Kreider- Oliver Kapanen- Ivan Demidov
Alex Newhook – Jake Evans -Kirby Dach
Zach Bolduc/Alexandre Texier – Phillip Danault – Josh Anderson
Going back to Kapanen after a 22-goal rookie season just makes sense; he’s not the first rookie to struggle at the tail end of his first year, and he won’t be the last one either. Newhook and Dach are both better suited to playing on the wing, and since both are playing in a contract year, they should be as motivated as can be to have a good season.
Anderson and Danault are 32 and 33 years old, respectively, and while they are also entering a contract year, they are known assets; they have nothing left to prove. They won’t benefit as much from ice time as Dach and Newhook would, as they are still in the development stage of their career and they both need to have gas left in the tank for the postseason.
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