On top of today’s coaching change, Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin may have a decision to make sooner than later regarding center Alex Galchenyuk, writes Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in his latest 30 Thoughts column. The 23 year old is set to become a restricted free agent at the end of the season (with a $3.1MM qualifying offer) and has two years of team control remaining before he’s eligible for unrestricted free agency.
However, despite a strong season so far with 29 points in 37 games, the team doesn’t appear to be set in thinking that he can be a full-time center. He has just a 42.3% success rate at the faceoff dot which isn’t ideal for a top line quality forward. Could the team be persuaded to move him for someone that they feel is a better fit down the middle? If Bergevin hasn’t made that decision already, he will need to soon.
As always, the full column is well worth a read but are a handful of the highlights:
- Sabres captain Brian Gionta has asked the team to not move him. The 38 year old is in the final season of a three year, $12.75MM deal he signed back in 2015. He has had a nice season with Buffalo, posting 27 points in 56 games and has a good chance at surpassing the 33 points he put up last season which made him a player that many expected to go as a rental in the coming weeks. Worth noting is that Gionta’s trade protection only allows for him to be dealt to five teams; he can block a deal to the other 24.
- Although he has been thought of as a strong candidate to be dealt dating back to the draft back in June, the belief around the league is that the Ducks will look to strike a long-term extension with Cam Fowler. The blueliner is well on his way to a career year with 30 points in 57 games and will undoubtedly get a nice raise from the $4MM cap hit he currently has. Teams can’t sign any extensions until there is one year remaining on the contract meaning that July 1st is the earliest anything could be done.
- Edmonton, Columbus, and Toronto are among the teams interested in Tampa Bay center Brian Boyle. He’s in the final year of his deal with a very manageable cap hit of $2MM which will make him particularly attractive to some cap-strapped teams as well. In a radio interview earlier, Friedman suggested that a first round pick (which doesn’t carry as much value this year due to a weaker draft class) could wind up being what it costs to secure Boyle, who is set to be a UFA at the end of the season. We took a closer look at Boyle last week as part of our Trade Candidates series.
I firmly believe if anyone is going to benefit from Therrien’s firing, it’ll be Galchenyuk. Therrien was the one who consistently favoured playing inferior players(Desharnais, Mitchell) instead of nurturing and developing Galchenyuk these past few seasons.