Cap Check: Canadiens are tight today and rich next July

The Canadiens are $1.5 million under the ceiling this morning with their captain and their best young forward on injured reserve, and neither one is on LTIR. That's the season in one line: Montreal is tight today and rich in July, and it has decided to live with the first part to protect the second.

Kent Hughes built the cleanest 2027-28 sheet in the Atlantic. The price is a 2026-27 sheet with no slack in it at all.

The number: $1,934,410. That's the bonus overage Montreal is carrying this season for bonuses earned last season. It's the first line on the sheet and it's dead money, and the team just signed a 35-year-old to a deal with $3.25 million in bonuses. There's another one of these coming.

Cap sheet: Space today: about $1.5 million as of Friday morning, with 21 of 23 roster spots filled. One site that hasn't logged September's signings still shows close to $11 million; ignore it. LTIR pool: zero. Nick Suzuki, Ivan Demidov, Sam Montembeault and Florian Xhekaj are on regular IR, and Mike Matheson is day-to-day.

Cap sheet, continued: Retained slots used: 1 of 3, Brendan Gallagher's $3.25 million, off the books in June. Contracts: 44 of 50. Potential bonuses: $4.35 million, $3.25 million of it Chris Kreider's. Buyouts: none.

Where they sit today

The summer was a series of small, careful moves. Gallagher went to Vancouver with half his $6.5 million retained. Kirby Dach took one year at $3.6 million, Zachary Bolduc four years at $4.2 million, Arber Xhekaj one year at $1.5 million. Alex Newhook's four-year extension at $5.55 million starts next fall.

Then Kreider arrived on a one-year deal, $2.15 million guaranteed plus up to $3.25 million in bonuses, after Anaheim bought out the last year of his old contract.

The biggest signing was the one that doesn't count yet: Demidov's eight-year extension at $9.15 million, agreed on July 1, starts in 2027-28. This season he counts $940,833, which is why the sheet closes at all.

Here's what $1.5 million buys. A team with no LTIR banks its unused space as the calendar runs, and by my math standing still gets Montreal to roughly $4 million of deadline space. That's a depth forward, not a difference-maker. Every dollar Hughes adds before March eats into it.

The bonus line is the quiet problem. With $1.5 million of room and $4.35 million in potential bonuses, anything Kreider or the entry-level kids earn becomes an overage on the 2027-28 cap. Next year's sheet can absorb it. It would still be the second straight year an overage lands there.

The three contracts that define the sheet

Best value: Lane Hutson, $8.85 million through 2033-34. He's playing 26.4 minutes a night with nine points in nine games, per NHL data, and he's 22. Montreal signed that deal last fall, three months after it brought in Noah Dobson. The pair costs $18.35 million together. Cale Makar alone costs $20.4 million on the deal Colorado signed in August.

The pair outscored opponents 31-14 last season, and the eight years buy the whole prime of the best player on the sheet.

Worst value: Matheson, $6 million through 2030-31. Five years and $30 million for a 32-year-old, with $20.8 million of it in signing bonuses and a full no-movement clause for the first three seasons. It was signed last November on the strength of 14 points in 22 games.

He's at 24.2 minutes a night with one point in five games, per NHL data, and he's missed four. The deal runs to age 37 on a blue line that already has Hutson, Dobson and Kaiden Guhle signed through at least 2030-31. The money isn't the problem. The term and the clause are.

The one that decides the future: Demidov, $9.15 million from 2027-28. Eight years, agreed after one NHL season: 82 games, 19 goals, 62 points, at age 20. Montreal paid for a projection, the same way Toronto did with Kirill Marchenko, except the kid was 20 and the term runs through 2035.

He had a goal and an assist in two games before the lower-body injury, per NHL data. If he's a 90-point winger when the deal starts, it's the best contract in the division. If he's a 60-point winger, it's the one line on a clean sheet that gets argued about for eight years.

The next two summers

Summer 2027 is the payoff. Phillip Danault ($5.5 million), Josh Anderson ($5.5 million), Alexandre Carrier ($3.75 million), Dach, Montembeault ($3.15 million) and Kreider all expire, and the Gallagher retention ends with them. That's about $26.9 million off the sheet.

Demidov's raise takes $8.2 million of it back and Newhook's takes $2.65 million. The cap is projected to climb to $113.5 million. By my count Montreal enters July with about $78.4 million committed to 13 players and roughly $35 million to spend, before RFA deals for Oliver Kapanen and Xhekaj, who'll have arbitration rights.

Summer 2028 is the goalie summer. Jacob Fowler's entry-level deal ends and he becomes an RFA. Right now he's 3-1-0 with a .901 and a shutout in four starts, per NHL data, while Jakub Dobes is at .847 in five.

Montembeault's $3.15 million leaves a year earlier. Montreal has to decide who its goalie is before it knows the price, and that's the only real choke point on this sheet.

Suzuki's extension window doesn't open until July 1, 2029, and Cole Caufield's a year after that.

Sign him now / Wait: Sign him now: Carrier. He's 29, $3.75 million, expiring, and with Matheson out he's at 19.6 minutes a night, 22.2 in his last game, per NHL data. A right-shot defenceman at 19 minutes costs more on July 1 with a $113.5 million cap than he does in October on a two- or three-year deal.

Wait: Danault. He's 33, $5.5 million, 15.9 minutes and two points in nine games, per NHL data. He was a December pickup for a second-round pick, not a core piece. Let the season decide whether July brings a one-year handshake or a thank-you.

The one move the numbers say to make

Trade Kirby Dach. He's playing 9.8 minutes a night with one point in nine games and eight straight without one, per NHL data. That's fourth-line usage on a $3.6 million one-year deal, behind Suzuki, Danault, Newhook and Jake Evans at centre.

Moving him for a pick turns $1.5 million of room into $5.1 million today and something close to $14 million at the deadline, by my math. The hockey and the cap point the same way, and Montreal has three retention slots open if a partner needs the number shaved.

The caveat

Nine games. Matheson's absence and Suzuki's two to four weeks can move every usage number above by Thanksgiving. The accrual math assumes nobody else gets hurt and no bonus is earned, and the $113.5 million ceiling is a projection until the league confirms it.

The two cap sites are nearly $10 million apart on Montreal's space because one hasn't posted September's deals. Trust the $1.5 million.

What I'd watch: Fowler's next ten starts. The sheet is built so Montreal can spend in July 2027, and the one position it hasn't paid is the net. If the 21-year-old holds a .900 through November, the goalie summer becomes an RFA bridge instead of a UFA shopping trip. That's the last open line on a sheet that's otherwise written.