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Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson: “they’ll be valuable to a playoff club”.
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How financially troubled is the Canadiens?

According to The Athletic, which has decided to rank the payroll of the 32 NHL teams, the Canadiens are in 22nd place. According to the site, only a dozen teams are worse off than the Habs.

Here is the text in question.

In the text, we get the feeling that if the Canadiens manage to make good use of the surplus that will be created when many contracts are off the club’s books, they’ll be fine.

Remember that Michael Pezzetta, David Savard, Joel Armia, Jake Evans and Christian Dvorak will all have the chance to leave the Habs, if they want, as early as the summer of 2025. They will be free agents.

But Kent Hughes can make trades, too.

And on that subject, there’s one sentence in the text that stood out for me. It’s the one in which the future of Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson was discussed, in connection with their big contracts.

Players like Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher make more money than they should, but they’ll be valuable to a playoff club, especially if Montreal withholds salary.

Gally ($6.5 M per year until 2027) and Andy ($5.5 M per year until 2027) are rather, in my eyes, impossible to trade. And I’m not the only one who says that. #Stanley25

Even if Gallagher has a good season, that doesn’t mean it’s going to continue forever.

And in Anderson’s case, he’s having a hard time playing up to his talent and like he’s capable of. I can’t see any club taking on one of these contracts right now: the risk is too great.

To be continued, but…


Overtime

– Really?

– Patience.

– NHL adds an assist to Lane Hutson.

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