Louis Jean thinks the Canadiens might be interested in Juuse Saros

Louis Jean may no longer be in the TVA Sports picture (Elizabeth Rancourt has taken over his position before Habs games), but he continues to be active in the Quebec media sphere.

Earlier, he was a guest on the Sortie de Zone podcast with Richard Labbé, Alexandre Pratt and host Jérémie Rainville.

The journalists discussed the future plans of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton, among others. Rainville is aware that to win, you need two goaltenders and asked Jean if the Habs might be interested in Juuse Saros. His answer: yes.

As he also mentioned, the problem is that the goalie, who’s been generating some interest around the NHL lately, is under contract for another season after this one (at an annual salary of five million dollars).

Would he sign an extension with the Canadiens? The Finn has no no-trade clause in his pact, but in the summer of 2025, he could decide to leave for a more competitive team. After all, Montreal is still a few years away from being dominant – Louis is even talking about five years – and he’ll be spoilt for choice when it comes to his next destination.

Over the past few years, the Preds’ goaltender has proven himself to be one of the league’s best. He’ll certainly be asking for a pay rise, and I wonder if the organization would give it to him. After all, Carey Price’s $10.5 million contract was a success at first, but today, we’re obliged to live with it. And signing a goalie for that kind of money doesn’t necessarily guarantee success.

Saros will be 30 when his contract expires. And is he really going to want to sign a short-to-medium-term contract for a team that has just completed a rebuild? No, I think his place of choice will be a team with big-time aspirations.

This season in Nashville, the 28-year-old netminder boasts an efficiency average of .904 and a goals-against average of 2.97. And there’s Yaroslav Askarov down below, who doesn’t let anything get past him.

In short, Jean sees potential Habs interest in the goalie, but doesn’t think it would be realistic. After all, Kent Hughes needs to get rid of a goalie, not acquire one… Besides, this will be THE priority issue for the GM this summer, according to Alexandre Pratt.

In a flurry

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– /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) February 23, 2024

– Will he break through the lineup?

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– A Gatineau man in the NHL.

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