After picking him third overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Canadiens took only about a month to sign their highest draft pick since 1980. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but are very limited by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. It’ll be a three year deal that will include performance bonuses on top of a base salary of $925,000. Nail Yakupov, the first overall pick, had performance bonuses worth $2.85m per season to give him a cap hit of $3.775m per year. Galchenyuk could very well have the same deal given to him.
The next question will be whether Galchenyuk can make the Canadiens out of training camp this fall. Over half of the last 20 3rd overall picks have made the jump right to the NHL, but rarely have any had a big impact within their first two seasons. After missing most of the 2011-12 season due to injury, one could understand if the Canadiens decide to wait on Alex for a year.
But first thing’s first, we need a nickname for this kid. I think that’s an appropriate conversation for the comments below. And no, ‘Gally’ is not acceptable.
