TSN Hockey Insider Chris Johnston joins Gino Reda to discuss how well-positioned Montreal is to make further roster moves, and why Sweden’s Sam Hallam is a name to watch in North American head coaching circles.

Gino Reda: The game’s stars taking hometown discounts – could that become a trend? To discuss that, here’s Insider Chris Johnston – CJ, I’m not going to try to compare what Lane Hutson did to what Connor McDavid did, but the Habs have to be thrilled with the way this is playing out for their rebuild.

Chris Johnston: Absolutely, and I think especially in light of the context, going all the way back to when they first signed Nick Suzuki, they got [Juraj] Slafkovsky and [Kaiden] Guhle, they now have six players locked up starting next season for roughly $47 million.

In a cap world, where it’s going to be a cap above $100 million starting next season, that’s tremendous value when you’re looking at the core of what the Canadiens hope is going to be their next team.

It’s not something everyone can accomplish, it’s something Montreal has established there. Kent Hughes, the general manager, was pretty upfront and forthright during the negotiations with Hutson about the idea that there is sort of an internal cap, so to speak, it might not be a hard cap but an idea that maybe players leave a little bit more on the table so they can achieve more as a team.

I think when you look at their cap sheet compared to most around the league, they’re in a fantastic spot here as they move forward with really not that much left to do. They have a pending UFA in Mike Matheson this season, who I think they’ll look to explore whether there’s something to be done there, and they also have Zac Bolduc, who’s an RFA after this season that will need to be signed and of course Ivan

Demidov could sign an extension as of summer of 2026. The point is, the Canadiens have lots of money to do those deals and perhaps something else to improve the roster beyond it.

Reda: Habs fans have to be thrilled. I want to follow up on that – we see this happen every year, a couple months into the season, some of the lesser teams start to realize it’s time to move some bodies because why spend when they don’t feel they can win this year.

With that in mind, bodies are going to become available. Where do you see the Habs using this cap space, what are their most pressing needs, CJ?

Johnston: The most pressing need is for another centreman, and I think if you could go to the store as the Habs office specifically, they’d be buying a left-shot centreman.

They’re in a unique position where each of the centres on their roster are right-handed shots, which presents some challenges for faceoffs and other things, but Montreal has been on that for a little while now, it was a market they were exploring over the summer, nothing really materialized there, and if we look broadly at the NHL’s trade market, it’s just been kind of frozen for a little bit.

I think Montreal is taking a long view, understanding what kind of opportunities are going to be out there at some point for them, whether it’s one of those teams that surprisingly finds itself down the standings or maybe another team that just shifts its thinking on a player or players that they’d like to move.

I think certainly the Canadiens have done everything they can to be up to date on all the files of potential centres that would be available and I do think at some point in time, hard right now to say what time that will be, you’ll see them make that kind of move and bolster themselves down the middle.

Reda: I want to ask you about some international hockey news now – puck drop on the Winter Olympics is just under four months away, and there’s some interesting news out of Sweden today?

Johnston: Yeah, they’re switching up the national team head coach after this season. Rikard Gronborg, who previously had that job, will return to it, starting in 2026, with Sam Hallam departing the national team.

What makes that interesting is that Hallam is now a name to at least keep an eye on from an NHL perspective.

He’s a younger coach, he had a lot of domestic league success in Sweden before getting to the national team job.

He’s got two main tournaments left with Sweden, the Olympics in Milan in February and then the World Hockey Championship in the spring, and then after that point in time he’ll be looking for some new opportunities.

I do think it’s possible, we don’t have a lot of international representation on NHL benches but he’d like to take steps towards being one of the next European coaches that can find his way there, he can start to do that as of next summer.

It raises the stakes too, in those tournaments for the Swedish team, as Hallam looks to get more eyeballs on him, perhaps, here in North America.