Friedman believes Utah will be in on a recent Stanley Cup winner on July 1
After the 2024 NHL Draft, the Utah Hockey Team had a completely new defensive core.
Going into the draft weekend, they had no one under contract and looked to be going heavy into the free-agent market. After the seventh round ended, they had a bona fide number-one pairing that they traded for.
Acquiring both Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino changes the entire outlook of their blue line and will make it harder for teams to score on them.
NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman did an 'Elliotte's Post Draft Ramblings" podcast on his 32 Thoughts The Podcast, and he revealed that Utah may not be done restructuring their back end.
When talking about Utah, he had this to say: "Utah, by the way, I still think there's some people who believe they're going to be in on Brandon Montour if he hits the market from Florida."
If Utah can add Montour to a blue line that already consists of Sergachev, Marino, and Sean Durzi (who is an RFA and needs to be qualified), that would put them close to, if not at the top, of the best defence cores in the NHL.
After winning the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers less than a week ago, Montour will likely be asking for a very large deal. Somewhere in the range of $7-8 million for seven years.
Utah is in a financial situation where they can offer him that and still address other needs. They still have $28 million in projected cap space and would only need last-pairing options and a few bottom-six options up front. This means signing Montour to that contract would be very easy to do.