Martin St-Louis left money on the table to sign his extension with the Canadiens, and Kent Hughes went public with the detail this morning.
The general manager laid it out to Renaud Lavoie on TVA Sports, with William Nadeau writing it up for Marqueur.
Here is what makes it strange. A head coach's salary does not count against the cap, so cutting his own number bought the club nothing on the ledger.
He did it anyway. The new agreement runs four seasons and carries him through the end of 2029-30.
The old one was not close to expiring either. It had another year on it, set to run out after 2026-27, and they tore it up.
He is not coaching a mess, which is the part that makes the discount land differently. Montreal went 48-24-10 and finished sixth overall.
Then the spring got serious. Nineteen playoff dates, with the Tampa Bay and Buffalo series both going the full seven.
-
Kent Hughes tore up the old deal after one conversation
That is the detail that will travel. One discussion, according to the GM, and the thing was done.
Hughes did the same thing to himself last year, taking less on his own extension with no financial reason to bother.
That consistency is the whole point. It is very hard to ask a 22 year old to sign under market value when the people upstairs are maxing out.
Lane Hutson is the obvious example. His deal pays $8.85 million a season after a 78 point year at plus-36 from the blue line.
He was not a passenger in the playoffs either. Sixteen points across those 19 games, at an age when most defencemen are still figuring out the league.
Ivan Demidov took the same route. Sixty two points as a 20 year old while playing on $940,833.
Chris Kreider picked Montreal over other offers too, and Hughes made a point of crediting the room rather than the pitch. He is 35 and put up 50 points in 75 games.
So does any of this actually win a hockey game in March?
A coach cutting his own pay on money that never touches the cap is like the boss buying the first round. It costs him something small. It buys him something bigger.
The season did not end well for any of them. Carolina closed it out in five, including a 4-0 night at the Bell Centre and a 6-1 finish on the road.
Camp opens with Kaiden Guhle out until at least November 3 and a group that has now been told, twice over, what the standard is.
Four more years is a long runway. It also means nobody upstairs gets to blame the coach if this group stalls out at the same spot again.
Is Martin St-Louis the coach who can take this Canadiens group past where Carolina stopped them?
Also read on Markerzone.com:
Connor Hellebuyck to Oilers rumor gets major new update
