The panel discusses what the Montreal Canadiens should do with Jake Evans. Jake Evans has been having a career year. He’s been building towards this. I watched him at Notre Dame and could tell he was going to be a solid NHL role player. In college hockey, he wore the “A” and eventually was team captain too. He was always a character player. Amid his fifth full season, he’s a player who could be retained or traded. I’ll do this on the basis that he’s retained and then talk about what my expectations are for him to date. The days of this home-grown player getting under 2.5 million dollars are over. I think he’s going to make more than that but at 29, I wouldn’t go over five years because of his playing style. Evans [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/montreal-canadiens/latest-news/canadiens-a-new-evans-contract-is-just-a-matter-of-time] has 10 goals and 13 assists in 42 games. According to InStat, he’s drawn 24 penalty minutes while only getting called for four penalties all season. That’s tremendous. He’s winning 56% on face-offs and he averages 1.04 hits per game. On the negative side, he’s only had 8% defensive zone starts. He definitely had more than that in college. This is a big part of his game that puts the team in a unique situation. My expectation is to be the leader of the 4th line. Get 37 points, something close to that, and possibly challenge for the third-line center position. There’s more money in it for him if he can move up in the lineup. If not, he’s still valuable but eminently replaceable and that’s the conundrum.
