The Montreal Canadiens signed an extension with center Jake Evans for 2.85 million dollars a year for four years. The pivot, who is in the midst of a career year, is now off the market limiting the options of general manager Kent Hughes as far as trade deadline deals. 

To me, this signals the Canadiens want the player long-term and they want to “try” and make the playoffs. If they don’t trade David Savard either, that would be a weird call in my eyes. This is a choice by the organization for sure.

I like Evans but think he is a 4th line center on a good team. If he’s that good in the room and they feel he can keep up this offense, then the deal is fine. If he doesn’t reach this level again, then the term will be the issue in this deal. Term is always the killer. The AAV is never as much of an issue down the road it’s not having contracts fall off when the GMs spend to the cap. Someday soon, the Canadiens will be doing that like everybody else. 

You can’t retain everyone so teams choose those players carefully. To me, a 4th line center is a replaceable piece. It’s not that hard to draft that type of player and then you can allocate funds elsewhere. The Canadiens are taking a risk here. Like I said, let’s see how this looks in two years. But for now, I suspect that a fair amount of fans are happy that he’s staying.