Here’s something to think about as Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes continues to negotiate with Lane Hutson’s agents on a new contract.
No team with a player earning more than US$10 million has ever won the Stanley Cup.
The Florida Panthers won their second straight Stanley Cup last season with two players having a US$10 million salary-cap hit: captain Aleksander Barkov and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
There are 16 players in the NHL this season with a salary-cap hit of more than US$10.5 million, including three with the Edmonton Oilers, two with the Toronto Maple Leafs and two with the New York Rangers.
The highest-paid players in order (all figures in U.S. dollars) are: Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl ($14 million), Toronto’s Auston Matthews ($13.25 million), Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon ($12.6 million), Edmonton’s Connor McDavid ($12.5 million), Vegas’s Mitch Marner ($12 million), Dallas’s Mikko Rantanen ($12 million), the Rangers’ Artemi Panarin ($11.642 million), Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson ($11.6 million), Pittsburgh’s Erik Karlsson ($11.5 million), Toronto’s William Nylander ($11.5 million), Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin ($11.5 million), Boston’s David Pastrnak ($11.25 million), Los Angeles’s Drew Doughty ($11 million), Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin ($11 million), Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard ($10.5 million) and Calgary’s Jonathan Huberdeau ($10.5 million).
The only player in Canadiens history to have a salary-cap hit of more than $10 million was goalie Carey Price. The last year of Price’s eight-year, $84-million contract with a $10.5 million salary-cap hit was traded by Hughes to the San Jose Sharks on Sept. 5. Price will remain on long-term injured reserve for the fourth straight season with a knee injury before he can officially retire.
The highest-paid player on the Canadiens this season is new defenceman Noah Dobson, with a $9.5 million salary-cap hit on his new eight-year, $76-million contract.
The number of players earning more than $10.5 million will continue to grow with the NHL salary cap jumping this season from $88 million in 2024-25 to $95 million, followed by another jump to $104 million for 2026-27 and $113.5 million for 2027-28. Eventually, a team with a player earning more than $10 million will win the Stanley Cup.
But in the hard salary-cap world of the NHL history has shown paying a ton of money to your top one or two players — or the Core Four in the case of the Maple Leafs the last few years — isn’t the best way to build a Stanley Cup winner. That’s why McDavid agreed to a two-year, $25-million contract extension this week that does not include a raise from his $12.5 million salary this season and makes him the most underpaid superstar in North American pro sports.
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers leads MLB with an average annual salary of $70 million, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott leads the NFL at $60 million and Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors leads the NBA at $59.6 million. Curry will be surpassed by the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when his four-year, $285-million contract extension kicks in for the 2027-28 season with an average annual salary of $71 million.
At the end of McDavid’s contract extension he will have had the same $12.5 million salary-cap hit for 10 straight seasons. He’s following in the footsteps of Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who is in the first season of a two-year, $17.4-million contract with a salary cap hit of $8.7 million — matching his No. 87. At the end of this contract, Crosby will have earned $8.7 million for 19 straight seasons while helping the Penguins win three Stanley Cups.
Which brings us back to Hutson
Negotiations between Hughes and Hutson’s agents with Quartexx Management haven’t gone smoothly with the 21-year-old defenceman’s father, Rob, also having a loud voice.
Hopefully for the Canadiens this doesn’t become an uncomfortable father-son situation like they had to deal with when Alex Galchenyuk was with the team.
The Canadiens don’t have to be in any rush to sign Hutson, who is in the final season of his NHL entry-level deal with a $950,000 salary-cap hit after winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie last season. Hutson can become a restricted free agent at the end of this season, but would not yet be eligible to sign an offer sheet. The Canadiens are in a position they could make him a qualifying offer ahead of next season, but they obviously don’t want it to get to that point when feelings can really get hurt.
You have to think Hughes would like to keep the Canadiens’ salary structure in place and not sign Hutson for more than the $9.5 million a year Dobson is earning. Just like the GM was able to get both Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky to sign for slightly less than the $7.875 million captain Nick Suzuki earns.
Hughes was a longtime player agent with Quatexx Management before becoming GM of the Canadiens so you have to think something will get worked out soon.
Youth movement
The Canadiens are the youngest team in the NHL this season with an average age of 25.8. They are followed by the Buffalo Sabres (26.48), Chicago Blackhawks (26.49), Philadelphia Flyers (27.1) and Columbus Blue Jackets (27.57).
The Canadiens also have 12 players who were selected in the first round of NHL Drafts on their 22-man roster: Ivan Demidov, Slafkovsky, Zachary Bolduc, Kaiden Guhle, Kirby Dach, Caufield, Alex Newhook, Dobson, Suzuki, Patrik Laine, Mike Matheson and Joe Veleno. Hutson would be a first-round pick if NHL teams could have a do-over of the 2022 NHL Draft when the Canadiens selected him in the second round (62nd overall).
Of the 12 first-round picks, nine of them are 25 or younger. The only older ones are Suzuki (26), Laine (27) and Matheson (31).
Now in Year 4 of the rebuilding process, there will be more pressure on this young Canadiens team after making the playoffs last season. That doesn’t concern the 23-year-old Guhle, who was the 16th overall pick at the 2020 NHL Draft.
“I think you look at how our team has dealt with pressure, it seems like when our backs are against the wall is when we play our best,” Guhle said. “I think every guy in this room likes the pressure and I think it brings the best out of everyone in this room. I’m not worried at all in the slightest that the pressure is going to get to the guys in having to make the playoffs and expecting to make the playoffs. The outside noise no one really cares about. I think it’s more pressure within our group and, again, when we have that type of pressure I think that’s when everyone plays their best.”
The Canadiens had a 7-1-2 record in their final 10 games last season to earn the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“Last year, maybe there was I don’t wasn’t to say unknown,” Guhle said about the start of last season when the Canadiens had a 4-9-2 record in their first 15 games and were sitting in last place in the overall NHL standings. “We knew that we were good, but you just never know going into a season with a young team how things are going to go. Everyone believed in the group. I think this year there’s more belief and more reason to believe that we’re going to be a really good team in this league.
“It’s going to be fun to see what we can do,” Guhle added. “It’s a hard league and it’s not an easy thing to do to be good and make the playoffs. But we believe that we can do it, for sure.”
Beach body
Arber Xhekaj has always been a big, strong guy.
But now he’s a very sculpted 6-foot-4 and 236 pounds — about five pounds lighter than he was last season.
That’s a result of working out hard all summer with his younger brother Florian, who will start the season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket, and having their mother cook for them.
“Put a shirt on,” Slafkovsky said as he walked past a shirtless Xhekaj when I was speaking to him in the locker room at the CN Sports Complex this week before the Canadiens left on their season-opening road trip.
“Just strict diet,” Xhekaj said when asked about his new physique. “Staying on a good nutrition program that my mom put me and my brother on with what we needed. Just trained hard and stayed focused all summer. That’s it.”
What type of foods did he eat?
“A lot of lean red meats and liver and chicken hearts. A lot of organs, stuff like that,” Xhekaj said with a chuckle. “Steak, chicken, fish, eggs. I just eat a lot of lean meats and not a lot of carbs. That’s kind of how you get lean. I feel good.”
Xhekaj’s mother, Simona, was a talented volleyball player while growing up, playing for the junior national team in Czechoslovakia. She still trains regularly at the gym while keeping a strict diet. She’s a very strong woman who works in the garage at a Costco in Hamilton changing tires.
Xhekaj said he feels faster on the ice after his summer training and diet.
“Playing against fast players and little shifty guys, I think the league is a lot of good skaters and good skill guys now,” Xhekaj said. “It’s going to help if I have faster feet. I think it’s just down low in the corners and just explode into the corner and getting to your guys faster. Having an even tighter gap because I know that I can keep up with the other guys and they’re not going to burn me. I think that’s kind of where I’m at.”
The little brother
Josh Anderson was impressed when he saw Florian Xhekaj — who is now 6-foot-3 and 217 pounds — drop the gloves during a pre-season game and fight the Philadelphia Flyers’ Nicolas Deslauriers.
“I remember watching it on TV,” Anderson said. “I wasn’t surprised. A guy that’s competing, (Xhekaj’s) a physical presence. He’s trying to do everything he can to earn a spot on this team and that’s noticeable right there. A lot of credit to him fighting one of the toughest guys in the league and he did a really good job. You love to see it.”
It brought back some memories for Anderson of him trying to break into the NHL as a power forward with the Columbus Blue Jackets after they selected him in the fourth round (95th overall) of the 2012 NHL Draft. The Canadiens selected Xhekaj in the fourth round (101st overall) of the 2023 NHL Draft.
“I think my first year I fought six or seven times,” Anderson recalled. “In the pre-season, I actually broke my orbital bone. So that was pretty much a welcome to the National Hockey League fight.”
Anderson suffered the broken orbital bone in a pre-season fight with the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Steve Oleksy in 2015 and required surgery that sidelined him for four weeks. He only played 12 games with the Blue Jackets that season, but helped the Lake Erie Monsters win the AHL championship with 18-21-39 totals and 108 penalty minutes in 58 regular-season games before adding 7-5-12 totals and 24 penalty minutes in 15 playoff games.
Anderson made the jump to the NHL the next season.
End of an era
With the retirement of David Savard there are now no Canadiens players living on the South Shore close to the team’s practice facility in Brossard.
After the sports complex in Brossard opened in 2008, many Canadiens players decided to live on the South Shore, mostly in Brossard and Candiac. Those players included Carey Price, Shea Weber, Jake Allen, Josh Gorges (with a young Brendan Gallagher) and Paul Byron.
But now the players live downtown, either in Westmount, the trendy Griffintown area, Old Montreal or, like Alexandre Carrier, on the Lachine Canal in Pointe-St-Charles. Part of the reason is after taking over as head coach three years ago, St. Louis decided to move morning skates on game days to the Bell Centre instead of the CN Sports Complex.
“I think part of it is the morning skates aren’t in Brossard anymore — they’re at the Bell Centre — and Dave hated the drives (from the South Shore),” said Jake Evans, who purchased a house in Westmount with his wife this summer after signing a new four-year, US$11.4-million contract. “I think you want to be close to teammates because your wives are friends and they’re close. It wouldn’t make sense for us to go to the South shore by ourselves.”
Evans and Brendan Gallagher, who both became fathers over the last year with Evans’s wife giving birth to twin boys, live close to each other and carpool to practices in Brossard.
“It’s funny getting in the car with him in the morning,” Gallagher said. “You can tell right away when he had a rough night and I think I’m the same way. You have about 20 minutes if you’re the passenger to get some rest. But he’s got a tougher task than me. I’m in a little bit better stage than he is (with twins).”
Evans said having teammates live close to each other also helps create a bond between wives and girlfriends of the players.
“We always talk about looking at the organization as a family,” Evans said “The wives and the girlfriends all get along great. The ones that have been here longer bring the newer ones in quickly. They got a great group and a good thing going.”
Bright lights, new city
Dobson is adjusting to living in downtown Montreal, near the Bell Centre, after spending his first six seasons with the New York Islanders.
“It’s a lot different,” he said. “I think any time you go to a new city, a new team, there’s lots of things that are different. But, honestly, it’s been great so far. I wake up every morning with just excitement to get back to the rink with the guys. It’s a fun group to be around. It’s a young team, but a hungry team. A guy like myself just coming into that it’s super exciting.
“Long Island suburbs, beautiful, we loved it there,” added Dobson, who got married this summer. “But just being in the city is different. It’s working out. Just finding your spots, groceries and stuff like that. But the people, everyone’s been awesome. It’s cool waking up, looking around, seeing that you’re in a city and knowing the Bell Centre’s down the street, restaurants everywhere. It’s fun. It’s a new adventure and we’re embracing it. We’re excited for it.”
Dobson is from Summerside, P.E.I.. His wife, Alexa Serowik, works as a reporter for ABC6 News in Providence, RI, and also covers NASCAR racing.
“Didn’t know much about it,” Dobson said when I asked if he was a NASCAR fan. “In Canada, it’s not that big but, in America, I didn’t know how big the sport actually was. But it’s pretty cool. She’s been embracing living in Canada and I embraced living in America. It’s been good so far.”
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