2023-24 Canadiens Offseason Roster Construction: Which UFAs and RFAs should be retained?

The 2022-23 season is thankfully over for les Canadiens de Montréal, but it doesn't really feel like we can now sit back and take a break.  As supporters of the team, all season long we kept an eye on the current, sure, at the daily games and practice reports, but really our hearts and minds were on the future.  We saw everything that happened this year through the prism of The Rebuild, and at this point on the calendar, we're ankle-deep in it.

We have a lot of wheeling and dealing to look forward to as we prepare for the next season.  We will work through some decisions the team's brass will have to make as some important dates near (May 8, June 15, June 28-29, July 1, August 15).  While our educated guesses won't be binding on Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, they will be a starting point for discussions, and will firm up in our own minds what the issues are, where the biggest struggles will be.

What we'll look at in the first instalment is relatively straightforward.  We'll gaze into the crystal ball and try to predict which and/or how many impending Canadiens free agents will be re-signed for next year.  Restricted free agents (RFA) are under team control, and can be retained if the team submits a qualifying offer (QO) by June 15.  Players with expiring contracts who are set to become unrestricted free agents (UFA) can re-sign with their teams at any time, or can wait until their contract expires on July 1 and then offer their services to the highest/best bidder.

One important factor to consider in our decision-making is the 50-contract limit.  In the olden days, the Canadiens' Frank Selke and later Sam Pollock could and would sign an apparently inexhaustible parade of prospects to 'C forms', which bound players to an NHL team in perpetuity, but this is no longer allowable.  Now teams have to stay under this limit, and usually don't go above 47 or 48 at the outset of the season, so as to leave some flexibility to acquire players in trade, in case of injuries, etc.

The Canadiens organization currently has 48 players under contract.  This number will decrease as players whose contracts are set to expire and and who can become unrestricted free agents are cut loose or choose to play elsewhere.  These candidates are Jonathan Drouin, Paul Byron, Sean Monahan, Alex Belzile and Chris Tierney on the NHL roster, and Anthony Richard, Otto Leskinen, Frédéric Allard, Corey Schueneman, and Madison Bowey on the AHL farm team roster.

Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron will not be back with the Canadiens.  Jonathan Drouin's travails and unproductivity have been thoroughly discussed, there is no need to beat this dead horse.  If Jonathan can find an NHL home in a market with a much smaller media and fan-obsession profile, good for him, but we're almost wishing in his case that he finds a sinecure in the Swiss league, apparently conditions there are great, he can play pro hockey with no pressure and no facial cross-checking.  We wish him good luck.  

Paul Byron is medically unable to play NHL hockey, he's recovering from hip surgery and cannot even go for an easy skate without experiencing great pain.  His future health and mobility are in question, so he'll probably retire to rehab and launch an NHL front-office career, he's already being eased into the role by Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, having occasionally this season donned a suit and watched games with them in the exec suite.

Sean Monahan's ability to play and avoid injuries is a giant question mark.  He proclaimed himself healthy at training camp, as feeling the best he had in a long time, but suffered injuries and couldn't play for a majority of the season.  As such, he's a big risk for any team to take on, he'll take up a roster spot and cap space but very well could end up on IR, which isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's just another roster headache teams would rather avoid if they can.  At locker cleanout day, he expressed to the  assembled media a desire to return to the Canadiens next season, but if he does return it will most probably be on a one-year prove-it deal at a low cap hit, possibly with incentives.  

Chris Tierney did the job he was expected to when he was claimed on waivers, which was to fill out a jersey while the Canadiens muddled through their rash of injuries, but he had little impact, no Torrey Mitchell was he, so he'll most likely not be back. 

Alex Belzile we can foresee being signed for one or two years, with a substantial AHL salary or even on a one-way deal, with a view to serving as a captain in Laval and a ready callup candidate.

Anthony Richard appeared to love playing in Laval in front of hometown crowds, and to love even more getting to play some games with the Canadiens, but he's not a slam-dunk to return.  He is at an age where the most important deciding factor is an opportunity to play some NHL games and establish his career.  For him, signing with Phoenix would be a windfall, not a nightmare.  Let's put him at a 50% chance of returning, at best.

Corey Schueneman is in kind of the same situation at this stage of his career, and he can probably read the handwriting on the wall, with so many young left-shot defencemen having vaulted past him on the organization's depth chart.  He will likely be in search of greener pastures.

Frédéric Allard, acquired mid-season in a trade, is a hometown boy who played a few NHL games almost by default; he also was made a healthy scratch repeatedly by Laval Rocket head coach Jean-François Houle.  Madison Bowey is a former blue-chip NHL prospect and World Junior star who has failed to establish himself as anything but a farmhand.  If he returns to the Rocket it will be on an AHL contract.  Otto Leskinen made a surprise return to Laval this season, and did not really improve or materialize as an NHL prospect.  I expect he will play in Europe next season.

So of the ten UFAs, let's pencil in three as returning.  This whittles down the contracts number to around 41.  

Next, we get to prognosticate about the restricted free agents.  In the past, I've tended to be overly optimistic about the number of returnees.  You grow attached to your own prospects, and you tend to think there's no harm in being patient, but Marc Bergevin for example demonstrated he could be remarkably unemotional about cutting ties with unproductive or stalled or low-hope prospects, and there is an opportunity cost to having such players gumming up the works in your organization, they can prevent you from signing the next Great White Hope, from jumping on the right gravy train.

So we'll try but probably fail to be ruthless, or at least objective.  On the NHL team, the RFAs are Cole Caufield, Denis Gurianov and Michael Pezzetta.  On the AHL roster, we find RFAs-to-be Jesse Ylonen, Lucas Condotta, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Joël Teasdale, Mitchell Stephens and Nicolas Beaudin.

The Cole Caufield matter is easy: he should/will be signed to a long-term contract comparable to Nick Suzuki's.

Denis Gurianov is less straightforward.  His pedigree and scouting report are compelling, but his tenure in Dallas and his cameo in bleu-blanc-rouge much less so.  Maybe the GM will trust Martin St. Louis to be the Enigmatic Russian Whisperer, but he hasn't had much success with the Enigmatic Armia so far, nor with the Infuriating Hoffman, so it's doubtful that the roster can contain three such shiftless loafers.  The latter two hold contracts that are nigh impossible to trade away, so we're stuck with them next year, whereas Mr. Gurianov we can walk away from, cut ties and be free and clear, cap-unencumbered, and I predict that's what we'll do.  

His qualifying offer would be $2.9M, so it wouldn't be a low risk gamble to make and hope for him to blossom next season.  If we offer him a lesser amount, he can refuse to sign that offer and become UFA, and play for that lesser amount anywhere he pleases, say a warm-weather tax-free locale.  He's as good as gone.

Michael Pezzetta, while clearly no better than a 13th forward-level player, probably has earned himself a small raise this season.  The 2016 6th-round draftee toiled for years in the Canadiens system and made his callups count by showing grit, determination, and courage.  While his counting stats are nothing to write home about, his fearlessness and take-on-all-comers snarl probably make him a popular teammate.  With the team not expected to really compete for a playoff spot next season, with many youngsters and small or smallish players in the lineup, Michael Pezzetta has a place and usefulness on the roster.  If he has a dip in his performance or gets squeezed out by lineup shuffles, he can get sent down to Laval, even at the risk of his being lost on waivers, it wouldn't be the end of the world.  This however can be warded off somewhat with a one-way $1M contract, I would think.  Other teams might balk at the bill, but in our situation we can afford it.

For the Laval contingent, again it's easy to read the tea leaves in some cases, namely for Jesse Ylonen and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, who will receive qualifying offers, and may be signed to longer term deals.  Both showed in NHL callups that they could keep up and contribute.  

Jesse Ylonen would require to go through waivers if the Canadiens wanted to send him to Laval, and they won't risk losing him thus, so he's pretty much guaranteed to start the season in Montréal or be used as a trade asset and sent elsewhere.  Rafaël Harvey-Pinard could be sent to the AHL without waivers, and in his case the complicating factor would be basic decency, since his impact on the roster, however he was used, was remarkable, both in the stats he amassed, but also in his intangibles, and how quickly he became a fan favourite.  It would be hard to preach a culture of accountability and merit if you sent down Monsieur Harvey-Pinard.

Nicolas Beaudin has a lot of runway as a 23-year-old defenceman, we often state that defencemen take longer to develop, to 'get it', and he has an enticing background as a point-producer and powerplay quarterback, so he'll most likely be qualified.  He'll have to work very hard to distinguish himself among all the other young promising defencemen, but that's the career he's chosen, a very competitive, results-based one.

Contrarily, Lucas Condotta, Joël Teasdale, and Mitchell Stephens are all forwards in their mid-twenties whose ceiling is quite low, and while they are useful farmhands and played varying important roles in Laval and as callups, they'll be pushed by the arrival of a number of young forwards like Joshua Roy, Sean Farrell, Riley Kidney, Emil Heineman, and Jared Davidson.  While you can't have an AHL roster with nothing but rookies, while you need veterans and experience and leadership, I'm struggling to see how many of the three RFAs we can keep.  

This is where the 50-contract limit has its effect.  You can't keep everybody.  And the kids are going to need icetime if we send them to Laval, there's only so many spots in the lineup.  So let's be ruthless and guess that one is re-signed, or at most two.

So if we keep score, let's say six RFAs are retained and three are cut loose, which would bring our total existing contracts to 38.  While that seems like a healthy cushion, let's bear in mind that all those kids we bring into the fold, they're going to need contracts, or the contracts they have already signed but 'slid' for a year or two, they will kick in next season.  Sean Farrell and Emil Heineman are already counted in the existing contracts, but Joshua Roy, Riley Kidney, Jared Davidson, Jayden Struble and Logan Mailloux will add five more, so our total would go back up to 43.  

That is not a lot of room to manoeuvre.  If the Canadiens sign one or three free agents, make a trade for a couple of warm bodies to get us through the season and prepare for injuries, we'd be right up to the limit of 50 again.  So does Kent Hughes feel comfortable with this, or does he wave a magic wand and maybe clear out contracts like Carey Price's?  Maybe the Coyotes would love to add his cap hit, with the understanding that the insurance company will pay out the actual dollars?  Or does the Canadiens GM trade away a superfluous Chris Wideman, or buy him out?  

Most of these questions will be answered during the spring and summer, and we'll revisit these matters before training camp, and see how the Canadiens dealt with their free agents-to-be, and with this vexing 50-contract limit.  

In our next étude, we'll look at which draftees whose rights are set to expire, either on June 15 or August 15, the Canadiens might/will/must sign to a contract.