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In Hainsight: Canadiens’ Player Is 3rd Most Looked-up Buyout |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Every team has strayed at times and given a contract it shouldn’t have, that’s why the league has buyout windows which allow general manager to get rid of those mistakes. Of course, it’s not a free service, if you buy a player out of his contract, you end up paying him less money but for longer. For instance, if the Canadiens wished to use a buyout on Brendan Gallagher who’s got 4 years left on his contract, they would have to pay him $18,333,333 over the course of 8 years, which would mean an annual cost of $2,291,667 on the Canadiens salary cap.
On website Capfriendly, there’s always a list of the most popular buyout searches on the homepage and Gallagher is the 3rd most popular buyout looked up by the users behind Toronto’s Matt Murray and former Canucks Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Two other Canadiens make the top-10, Joel Armia is 5th and Mike Hoffman is 10th.
It’s hardly surprising to see Gallagher come up so high, the 6-year pact he signed in 2020 is looking quite bad after a couple of injury riddled seasons. The diminutive winger is the very definition of a warrior, he has spent his whole career battling and it’s hardly surprising that his body has taken a beating. When Marc Bergevin signed him to his current contract, he signed him for services rendered and for the leadership he brings to the team.
Nowadays, Gallagher doesn’t produce at the same rhythm he once did, he might if only he could stay healthy, but his style of play hardly helps in that department, although St-Louis is trying to help him on that front, a leopard doesn’t change his spots.
Capfriendly users can look-up a Gallagher buyout all they want, but it would be highly surprising if the Canadiens decided to go that route, especially considering there are so many years left on the deal and they are not desperate for cap space. Furthermore, you don’t want to be carrying too much dead cap once you’re ready to really compete and you need every dollar available.
Last season, I had said that I thought Gallagher would have a bounce back season. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened as he was once again hit numerous times by the injury ninja. I won’t dare to make the same prediction this year, but I still firmly believe Gallagher can be very useful to this team. He’s a living and breathing example of dedication and tenacity and that’s a great role model for the Canadiens’ young players. That’s the main reason why I don’t think the Habs will ever go down this route.
Considering his best years are behind him, could Kent Hughes be tempted to explore the trade market? Perhaps, but from a pure logical standpoint, his contract is pretty much untradable considering the high cap hit, the low offensive output and of course, his injury history.
By the time it would make sense financially to pull the trigger on a Gallagher buyout, he’ll probably be on the long-term injured reserve list, just like Carey Price and you know what? I’m good with that. For everything he’s done for this team, he deserves to finish his career as a Montreal Canadiens.
I don’t think Hughes would think it necessary to use a buyout on Mike Hoffman, with only a year left on his contract, might as well bite the bullet and hope that by some miracle he finds a bit of his former scoring touch and can be flipped at the deadline. I think Joel Armia would be the most worthy of a buyout, an even then, coping with him for 2 years might just be more logical than carrying dead cap for 4 years.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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