We heard earlier this summer that the Montreal Canadiens are anxious to ship out the final year of Carey Price’s contract before the 2025-26 campaign begins.
“I can’t see the Canadiens going into the season with that anchor on their salary cap,” a source told insider Marco D’Amico in rg.org. In addition, there’s now a new frontrunner as the most likely trade partners for Montreal to take on the massive $10.5M cap hit.
Price is expected to be traded at some point in the week. Sources have heard the most amount of noise around the San Jose Sharks who are just $5M over the salary cap floor, with nine unrestricted free agents — five of which are defensemen — that could be prime trade candidates.
D’Amico also names the Chicago Blackhawks (which we discussed last month as well), and the Pittsburgh Penguins as the other potentially interested parties for Price’s cap hit.
The Sharks will likely be selling off several of those nine pending UFAs that D’Amico makes note of by the trade deadline, which would plunge them below the salary floor. That’s where Price’s $10.5M would come in handy.
The 9 UFAs who could be on the market from the Sharks, and their cap hits, are as follows:
Alex Wennberg, C, $5M cap hitJeff Skinner, F, $3M Carl Grundstrom, F, $1.8MRyan Reaves, F, $1.35MNick Leddy, D, $4MJohn Klingberg, D, $4MMario Ferraro, D, $3.25MTimothy Liljegren, D, $3MVincent Desharnais, D, $2MWhy trading Carey Price’s contract is urgent for Canadiens
As for the Habs, they are about $6 million over the cap, so purging Price’s contract is a must this year. And as D’Amico says, after Montreal paid out the final signing bonus to Price today on Sept. 1st, $5.5M, any team they send him to won’t have to deal with that cash outlay, meaning “there has never been a better time to move the contract.”
We’ll watch for this in the days ahead.
Photo: © Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images