Yesterday, it was reported that the Montreal Canadiens were one of several teams to make contact with pending UFA Matt Martin. If you believe the reports, it seems that he is yet another player, along with Dale Weise, that the Canadiens are kicking tires on as July 1 quickly approaches.
Hearing DET, TOR, MTL, BOS, LAK, CGY among the teams that have reached out to Matt Martin. #Isles
— Arthur Staple (@StapeNewsday) June 28, 2016
The former fifth-round draft pick had a career best offensive season last year, scoring 10 goals and 19 points over the course of 80 games. Now, since the Canadiens are apparently talking to him, would it be a good idea to sign him?
I do believe that the canadiens already have enough players like him on the roster. Martin is a bottom-six player who isn’t expected to provide a ton of scoring, and he doesn’t. He has never even crossed the 20-point plateau in his career, and while it isn’t out of the question that he could do so one day, the fact remains that he doesn’t drive offence.
Simply put, this is a hard no from me. He is very serviceable in terms of shot suppression, but in every other regard he is a fourth line player. That isn’t what the Canadiens need right now. What they need is secondary scoring, preferably someone with top-six upside.
Defensively, I do like things about his game. He definitely makes things very difficult for opposing forwards, as evidenced by his solid goals for percentage. But again, Montreal needs offence. He is not the guy who is going to bring that to the team, so they should not sign him.
He is a big and physical player. My only concern is that the Habs brass might still be worried about that phantom need to get bigger and stronger. If that is what they’re after, Martin would be the type of player to sign.
I really can’t see why the Canadiens would do that, though. If they were looking to move out a player like Paul Byron or Torrey Mitchell, then maybe they would be seriously considering it to shore up the bottom-six, but I doubt that they actually are. If they did it would come probably after hearing about someone else being traded.
I would opine that this is simply due diligence by Marc Bergevin. He already reached out to Weise, so it seems that he wants to speak with most of the free agents that are set to become available soon.
