What Teams are Good Fits for a Carey Price Trade?
September 1st isn’t generally a big deal on the NHL calendar but for the Habs this year, it is. That’s the day Carey Price’s signing bonus is paid and at that point, his contract could become tradable. Which teams make sense as a fit for him?
As a refresher, Price has a $7.5 million salary for the upcoming season, $5.5 million of which is paid as a signing bonus on the 1st. Meanwhile, with a career-ending injury, a significant chunk of the remaining $2 million is covered by insurance. I’ve seen 60% and 80% thrown out there. It’s not publicly disclosed but we’re talking about an acquiring team taking on either $400,000 or $800,000 in actual salary payments. That’s not nothing but given the previous costs of getting a team to do a double retention in a trade and take similar money on, we should have a pretty good idea of what the market rate would be if Montreal had to send a draft pick to get a team to absorb the contract. It’s going to be in the third-round pick to fifth-round pick range based on those comparables.
As things stand, the Habs are around $6 million over the cap, per PuckPedia. You can quibble about a couple of players on their projected roster but it’s a reasonable estimate. Notably, it’s not an ideal spot to be in when it comes to LTIR utilization. If you want to make the most of an LTIR placement, you want to be compliant with the Upper Limit but be as close as possible. They’re nowhere close to that.
Clearing him off the books outright would take that off the table and put them in position to open as a cap-compliant team for the first time since 2020-21. That would allow them to bank room for in-season additions or even offset the bonuses that their youngsters are likely to hit. That’s what’s at stake and why it’s meaningful for them to see if there’s a fit.
Knowing that teams with the most cap space are the most logical fits for Price, let’s work our way through those first before pondering other options. Cap numbers listed are via PuckPedia.
Anaheim: The Ducks are a lot like the Habs in that the size of their prospect pool is right up there; it’s also one of the strongest groups in the league. They may not be overly enthusiastic about adding a random mid-round (or thereabouts) draft pick. And while having nearly $21 million in cap space is a lot, a good chunk of that is going to go to Mason McTavish. A new deal for him plus absorbing Price’s contract would put them within a few million of the Upper Limit. They have even more bonus-laden contracts than Montreal so they’d be starting to run close to going over the cap if those incentives are met. They’re probably not a hard no but of the lower-spending teams, I don’t think they’re the best fit.
San Jose: Their prospect pool isn’t quite as replenished as Anaheim’s so the mid-round pick could be more enticing. But there might be a better way here. The Sharks are already at 49 contracts and adding Price with a pick for future considerations puts them at 50. They’re not going to do that. But what if Montreal took a player back instead? They have some players on the fringes of their roster with seven-figure salaries on expiring contracts. One is defenceman Vincent Desharnais ($2 million cap hit) who might be eighth or ninth on the depth chart now and a likely waiver candidate. Another is forward Ty Dellandrea ($1.3 million) who had all of eight points in 68 games last season and is a legitimate waiver candidate as well.
With nearly $20 million in cap space, they can afford Price’s contract more easily. And if they were to send one of those players back, they’d also have actual cash savings compared to the realistic alternative of those players clearing waivers and being sent to the minors. Granted, the Habs would have a lingering cap hit if they acquired one of those guys and sent him to Laval ($150,000 for Dellandrea, $850,000 for Desharnais) but would it be worth not quite getting the full $10.5 million in savings to save the draft pick and have a bit more depth in the organization? It’s worth considering. The Sharks are a good fit with both approaches but either way, Montreal needs to take at least one player back.
Chicago: The Blackhawks have had plenty of draft picks in recent years and boast one of the deeper prospect pools in the league. On the other hand, GM Kyle Davidson hasn’t shied away from doing these types of moves before, including taking on Shea Weber’s contract to add two other pieces (one of which has since been traded away). There isn’t a viable cost-cutting option like the Sharks have but the mid-round pick incentive makes sense here. If Montreal were a little closer to being cap-compliant right now, I’d have said a Weber-for-Price swap could have been an option but the few million in savings isn’t enough to get them there. They have a little under $18.7 million in room.
Columbus: GM Don Waddell said last year that he’d be willing to use the cap space freed up with the Patrik Laine trade to add assets. That never happened. They have a little over $15.5 million in room so adding Price would have them within $5 million of the ceiling which is starting to push it with nearly $4 million in potential bonuses on the books. I think they’d be interested in using some of their cap space to add a draft pick but not that much of it and maybe not doing that with a team they’re going to be fighting with for a Wild Card spot.
Calgary: The Flames don’t have a ton of extra draft capital as they haven’t been truly operating like a rebuilding team so there’s value in them getting a pick from Montreal here. But adding Price would put them less than $5 million away from the ceiling and they’re talking about trying to make the playoffs. Would they be okay with tying up two-thirds of their flexibility to add a pick? I’m not so sure and there isn’t a viable player offset here either.
Pittsburgh: GM Kyle Dubas is exactly the type of person who would be interested in this as it would add to their increasing stockpiles of picks. However, they only have $13 million in cap space so adding Price would put them pretty tight to the cap. (Yes, they could always LTIR him if they had to but going into there to add a mid-round pick isn’t a great idea.) They have some more expensive players who could be waiver-bound with Matt Dumba ($3.75 million) and Connor Clifton ($3.33 million), acquired in cap dumps from other teams. Is it worth taking a $2 million or more dead cap hit with one of them in the minors to dump the rest of Price’s contract without losing a pick? Maybe, but it’s not as appealing as the San Jose fit, however. Otherwise, they may not be a viable option without them shipping off another veteran elsewhere first.
Every other team has less than $12 million in cap space. A couple more teams could absorb Price’s deal but it would put them too close to the ceiling for it to make sense.
In theory, there’s another option and that’s trying to find what they did with Vegas with the original Weber trade. Is there a team that could send a player back to Montreal while adding enough salary to set them up for an ideal LTIR placement? It’d have to be a team already heading toward needing to use it that’s just wanting to add more space to their pool. The options aren’t plentiful.
Vegas will again be in that situation with Alex Pietrangelo done for the year (and likely for good) and they’re about a million shy of an ideal offseason LTIR placement. But they still have Alexander Holtz to re-sign and that probably gets them there. Besides, they don’t have an Evgenii Dadonov-like contract to move to make something like this happen.
Florida is also heading for LTIR with Matthew Tkachuk set to start the season there. Is there a way for them to add Price’s contract? That would let them stay in LTIR all season and not be in a spot where they have to cut salary when Tkachuk returns. In theory, that would work great for them. In practicality, I don’t see a viable fit unless it’s a much bigger deal with other moving parts on both sides.
Philadelphia will probably head there at some point with Ryan Ellis but he has two years left on his deal and isn’t a viable one-for-one swap for Price, even though it’d get them a lot closer to cap compliance. And like the other teams, I don’t see a swappable contract that makes their LTIR situation more viable. New Jersey is also going to get there at some point with Johnathan Kovacevic out for a bit but until they get Luke Hughes signed to know what their situation is going to be, making a move like that doesn’t make sense.
Long story short, on this front, they’re probably not going to have much luck trying to make history repeat itself by trying to repeat the Dadonov-Weber trade. Florida intrigues me as they’re the type of team it would make sense for and they’re known to get creative but I don’t see a way to make it work for them.
If I was picking the ideal team for Montreal to try to work with on a Carey Price trade, it would be San Jose. It would mean taking a player back (and maybe an extra AHL-bound player to help them on the 50-contract side) but that might allow them to get something tangible in return, albeit minor while not moving any assets. Failing that, there are at least a handful of viable fits for the Habs to try to incentivize a team to take on the final year of his deal.
But this isn’t a case where Montreal has to do anything either. Yes, being in LTIR isn’t ideal and yes, they’re presently not in great shape to try to optimize that space. But dealing with that is still better than parting with an asset of significance to move Price’s contract. In other words, there are scenarios where doing nothing is better than doing something.
Assuming they have a deal in place, it can be done as soon as Monday. You can trade a player on the day their bonus payment is due; it’s just established during the trade call who is responsible for paying it. That has happened before with some July 1st moves, notably the 2018 Ryan O’Reilly trade. His bonus was due that day but as part of the swap, the Blues agreed to pay it. However, considering September 1st (this Monday) is a holiday in both Canada and the United States, a Tuesday swap would be much more likely. And if that comes, we’ll see from there if there are any further dominoes to fall in Montreal’s offseason planning.