Kent Hughes set to make extremely controversial move involving Canadiens' goalies
Photo credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images
Samuel Montembeault has no July market, and for the Montreal Canadiens that is an opportunity rather than a problem.
Montreal Gazette columnist Stu Cowan laid out the expected setup on The Sick Podcast: three goalies will not survive camp.
If Samuel Montembeault is not traded, he backs up Jakub Dobes while Jacob Fowler is sent to the Laval Rocket.
That possible move is creating controversy in the city.
"They're not going to start with 3 goalies... If Montembeault is not traded, I think he starts as the backup to Dobeš and they send Fowler down to Laval."
- Stu Cowan
- Stu Cowan
That framing treats the surplus as a mess to be cleaned up before opening night. The salary cap suggests the opposite.
Montembeault carries a $3.15 million cap hit in the final season of his contract, and NHL cap charges accrue daily.
The buyer pool grows after opening night
Every day the Montreal Canadiens hold him, the amount an acquiring team absorbs shrinks. A club that cannot fit $3.15 million in October can fit roughly two thirds of it by December.
Goalie needs are also created, not scheduled. Teams that solved their crease on July 1 are one injury away from bidding against each other.
Kent Hughes would then be the only general manager holding a proven starter with no term attached.
Montreal has already played the other side of this
The Canadiens understand the mechanism because they benefited from it. Montreal claimed Samuel Montembeault off waivers from the Florida Panthers in 2021, during the kind of roster crunch it now hopes a rival suffers.
Jacob Fowler remains waiver exempt, so carrying three goalies costs Montreal nothing in asset risk. Jakub Dobes won 29 games last season and Fowler posted a 2.43 goals-against average.
Kent Hughes also has $9.78 million in projected cap space, which means he is not selling to create room.
The calm version is that patience is the asset. Montreal wins this situation by refusing to resolve it.
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