The Montreal Canadiens 2024-25 season is just a few months away, and although the fans are excited about the upcoming season, especially with the very successful 2024 Draft, they should hold their excitement for the season after 2025-26. This season, the Canadiens will be able to start putting the team together for that all-important run for the Stanley Cup.
2025 is going to be the most crucial offseason for the Habs. They will have several prospects ready to jump to the NHL and have most of their high contracts and dead money off their books. This will be the first season they can genuinely work the draft, free agency and through trading to build a consistent playoff team and Cup contender.
Canadiens’ Top Prospects Should be NHL-Ready
The Canadiens had a successful draft this season, selecting Ivan Demidov and Michael Hage in the first round. Demidov can potentially be one of Montreal’s most prominent stars since Alexei Kovalev in the early 2000s, and Hage could be a top-six center when he reaches the NHL. Now that Juraj Slafkovsky has signed his extension, their three top players have signed long-term contracts, with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield also signing eight-year agreements. The Canadiens also have many young prospects close to making the NHL jump, and a few others who are already in the NHL should be able to peak at about this time. After five seasons of successful drafting, the Habs should be able to tell who the right guy for their NHL team is and start building around them.
With Demidov possibly playing in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) this season, the Canadiens will have to wait until the 2025-26 season to have him in Montreal. Other prospects like David Reinbacher, Owen Beck, Logan Mailloux, and Filip Mesar will all have a year or more of professional hockey under their belts and, if not already in the NHL, will be ready to move on from the American Hockey League (AHL). The defence should be set with Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle, and they should be prepared for those top pairing minutes (Guhle already gets over 20 minutes per game). There also could be the off chance Jacob Fowler is ready to leave college and play for the Canadiens, but that could be a long shot.
Canadiens Will Have Lots of Money Off the Table
Not only will the Canadiens hopefully have many prospects ready for the NHL, but they will also have plenty of room and cap space for the team. Montreal’s general manager (GM) Kent Hughes has stated that he was looking to move forward in 2025; although they want to push for the playoffs, they feel next season is where they want to move forward. A huge reason is that lots of money comes off the cap. David Savard, Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak, Jake Evans and Michael Pezzetta come off the books after this season. They also lose Jeff Petry’s and Jake Allen’s retained salary.
Related: Evolution of Canadiens Development Model
With those seven contracts coming off the books, the Canadiens will have $14,631,250 available on the cap, and they will have a total of $26,937,500 of current cap space to play with. They will also have the option to put the last year of Carey Price’s contract on long-term injury reserve (LTIR), which isn’t optimal but money that can be used to help cap situations. This doesn’t count if the cap goes up or if they sign other players past next season, as the $26 million is the cap space right now. They have some players they need to sign extensions to that will count toward next year’s cap, like Guhle, Justin Barron and Arber Xhekaj.
Canadiens Should Be Ready to Sign Top Free Agents
With all the cap space available and prospects hopefully reaching their potential, the Canadiens can fill holes with top free agents (FA). So far, Montreal has been reluctant to sign any big-name FAs to long-term deals because they don’t want to block a prospect from moving into the lineup or bog down the team with an unmanageable salary in the future. Next season, however, if the Habs want to push to be a consistent playoff performer or contender, they must surround their young players with capable veterans. Hopefully, with the team ready to turn the corner, they can sign top-name FAs and not worry about them wanting to go elsewhere or using Montreal to get better contracts with another team.
Some bigger-named free agents in 2025 will be John Tavares, Sidney Crosby, Mikko Rantanen, Leon Draisaitl, Brad Marchand and Mitch Marner. Any of these players would be a significant addition to the Canadiens and help them pursue a Stanley Cup. It’s a good bet most of these players might stay with the teams they are with now, but Hughes will try to work some magic to sign one. The money will be there, and even though the Canadiens seem to have a cap structure in place, they will have to spend to improve, but if they don’t pay, it could be more of them spinning their wheels in hopes that the years of high draft picks is the answer. The prospects and young stars could be all they need, but adding some already NHL-established top-end talent won’t hurt.
This season is not the time to worry about the Canadiens’ offseason. Hughes has a plan, and he is sticking to it. It’s not easy to be patient, but we are almost through the tunnel, and the Habs’ future is shining bright.
