Montreal's Unsigned Restricted Free Agents Are the Gap Between Fourth and Tenth

The most expensive piece of Montreal’s summer is already done. What is left is the part that decides whether the rankings or the odds board is closer to right.

ESPN’s June panel put the Canadiens fourth overall, the highest any Canadian club was placed this cycle. theScore had them fifth on July 4, after the draft and free agency. The futures market is cooler, quoting Montreal around +2250 in late July, which slots them roughly tenth. ESPN’s own write-up named the reason for the gap: deals still needed for Joseph Veleno, Kirby Dach, Zack Bolduc and Arber Xhekaj.

The big contract was never the problem

Ivan Demidov signed an eight-year, $73 million extension on July 1, a $9.125 million cap hit that does not begin until 2027-28. That deal is the reason Montreal is ranked where it is ranked, and it is also the reason the rest of the list is manageable: none of it competes with a number that is not yet on the books.

Montreal’s core is priced unusually flat. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson are all signed below $9 million per season. A team can carry four significant forwards and a top-pairing defenceman at those numbers and still have room to settle a four-name restricted free agent list against a $104 million cap, up $8.5 million on last season. The floor sits at $76.9 million and the maximum individual salary at $20.8 million, which is context for how much space that flat structure actually buys.

The calendar is the pressure, not the money

What makes the timing awkward is not the cap. It is Sept. 15.

The collective bargaining agreement that takes effect Sept. 16 and runs through Sept. 15, 2030 cuts maximum contract length. A player re-signing with his own club drops from eight years to seven; a player signing elsewhere drops from seven to six. Every deal Montreal signs before that date can still run to the old limits. Every deal after it cannot.

For a bridge deal on a 24-year-old that difference is close to academic. For a long-term commitment on a player the club expects to keep into the next decade it is one full year of cost certainty, and it is gone in four weeks.

Why the market is discounting the ranking

Conference final runs pull rankings forward faster than they pull prices forward. Montreal went 48-24-10 and reached the Eastern Conference Final on a run very few boards had priced in advance, and the panels rewarded it immediately. Books are slower, because a book has to be right about the median outcome rather than the memorable one.

Between fourth and tenth sits a short list of names, a hard date, and a question about whether one playoff run described the roster or flattered it. Montreal has four weeks to answer the first part.

Odds and market references describe the situation at the time of writing. You must meet the legal gambling age in your province or territory. See responsible gambling.