Andrew Shaw’s new six-year, $23.4 million contract makes him the third-highest-paid forward on the team. Despite that large commitment of available funds, the Montreal Canadiens still have a significant amount of cap space available to attract a player this summer, and that projected $7.8 million cushion could expand with a trade of a current roster player.
As it currently stands, the Canadiens have enough goaltenders and defencemen signed, and just need to add two forwards to get to the 23-man roster limit.
The Canadiens made a move toward that goal on Monday, extending qualifying offers to Daniel Carr and Phillip Danault (as well as Shaw), who both have a shot at claiming a spot, and both probably should.
There’s still the possibility of getting an upgrade on one of the players currently added in the projection, with Stefan Matteau the most obvious candidate to lose his spot, but Artturi Lehkonen perhaps the most plausible.
More information on contract details is available at General Fanager and CapFriendly.
A public Google spreadsheet containing this cap info and the charts these visualizations are based upon is available here.
