Kirby Dach avoids arbitration, signs one year Canadiens deal

Kirby Dach and the Montreal Canadiens beat the clock this week, agreeing to a one year deal before his arbitration hearing ever happened.

The number: $3.6 million. That's a bump from the $3,362,500 cap hit he carried into this summer.

Nobody wants to walk into an arbitration room. Not the player, not the team. This one got settled before it came to that.

Dach comes off a season where he posted 8 goals and 7 assists for 15 points across 37 games. Not exactly the breakout the Canadiens were hoping for when they gave up Alex Kerfoot and Ryan Suzuki for him.

His underlying trend wasn't hiding, either. Over his last 10 games, Dach managed just 1 point and sat at a minus-5 rating.

Zoom into his last 5, and it gets worse: no goals, no assists, a minus-4. That's the kind of stretch that makes a one year bridge deal feel like the safer bet for both sides.

GM Kent Hughes has leaned on these short-term pacts before, buying time to see who a player actually is before committing long-term money.

Why the Canadiens picked one year over term security

This is a "prove it" deal, plain and simple. Dach gets paid a touch above the floor, and Montreal gets to see if last season was a blip or a pattern before it writes a bigger check.

Think of it like a one year lease instead of a mortgage. Both sides keep their options open, and neither is locked into a bad decision if things go sideways.

Montreal finished the season at 48-24-10 for 106 points, a plus-27 goal differential, and they'd won 7 of their last 10 games before their campaign wrapped with a loss in Philadelphia.

The centre depth chart in Montreal isn't short on names, and Dach's role next season is far from guaranteed. A flat year offensively doesn't buy patience forever.

Martin St-Louis will have decisions to make about where Dach lines up when training camp opens, and this contract length means those decisions come up again fast.

One year buys everybody a look. It doesn't buy Dach comfort.