Thanks to some shrewd extensions signed by the front office, the Montreal Canadiens arguably have the healthiest-looking long-term salary cap outlook. They’re expected to use some of that long-term space this summer in the form of a contract extension for Ivan Demidov.
In today’s end-of-season media availability, Demidov expectedly shared his desire to stay with the Canadiens for the foreseeable future. According to Marco D’Amico of RG Media, the front office shares a similar sentiment, quoting General Manager Kent Hughes, saying, “We know that Ivan likes playing in Montreal. We’ll talk to his agent in a few weeks. It all depends on whether the player prefers short-term or long-term contracts. We would prefer to sign him long-term.”
Additionally, team captain Nick Suzuki offered his own insight, according to D’Amico, saying he doesn’t think Demidov cares how much money he makes, only his ability to win.
Assuming everyone is telling the truth, and there’s no reason not to, it appears Demidov will sign a long-term extension with Montreal at some point this summer or next season. He’s already signed through next season thanks to his entry-level contract, but will become extension eligible on July 1st.
There’s no doubting his talent either. The former fifth overall pick is coming off an impressive rookie season, scoring 19 goals and 62 points in 82 games while averaging 15:30 of ice time. Despite being unlikely to win, that production warranted at least a top-three finish in the Calder Trophy voting this season.
He continued his strong play into the postseason, finishing with three goals and nine points in 19 contests, helping the Canadiens to the Eastern Conference Final.
If he does sign an extension, it’ll be interesting to see what dollar value the two sides agree to. Montreal has been willing to exceed Suzuki’s forward-leading $7.875MM salary on a pair of deals, but only for defensemen Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson. The Canadiens somehow managed to keep Juraj Slafkovsky under that threshold, but there’s no telling if Demidov will feel comfortable going there, especially with the rising salary cap.
According to AFP Analytics, on a long-term deal, Demidov is projected to land a seven-year, $58.1MM extension ($8.3MM AAV). Although he only has one season under his belt, that doesn’t seem like a bad number at face value. The Canadiens will likely try to get Demidov closer to the $8MM mark, if not below, while also approaching Suzuki about not being the highest-paid player on the team.
Montreal’s division rivals, the Detroit Red Wings, faced a similar situation two summers ago and were able to lock in Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to long-term deals lower than captain Dylan Larkin‘s $8.7MM salary.
There’s no indication that Suzuki would be opposed to something like that, and those conversations are still a few weeks away, anyway. Still, with the salary cap rising to over $100MM this offseason, keeping Demidov’s future salary lower than Suzuki’s feels like an impossible task.