Best Canadiens contracts for 2026-27 – Hockey Writers – Montreal Canadiens

Although Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes has been very quiet on the free-agent front this summer, forward Kirby Dach’s arbitration hearing is scheduled for July 30. He remains one of the few unemployed Habs who still need contracts for next season (Zachary Bolduc, Arber Xhekaj).

So, technically, this list of the club’s best contracts for 2026-27 (excluding entry-level deals) is still subject to change. However, based on common sense, each of the above players still has a lot to prove, fans are unlikely to be blown away by what each deal looks like.

In comparison, the following five have begun to show their value to the organization, as evidenced by the way Canadians rush to secure their deals and negotiate early in each case:

Alexandre Texier ($2.5 million cap hit)

Just look at Alexandre Texier, who initially signed for one year and $1 million in November (after his contract was terminated by the St. Louis Blues) only to re-sign for two less than two months later. Texier is actually very different in that, when he signed his extension, he was coming off a successful season, where he got three points in consecutive games and eight of four contests (before finishing his 43 games with the Canadiens with 20 points), which made critics argue with Hughes that he committed too soon.

Any suggestion of that should be met with loud cheers, considering it’s only a two-season commitment and a reasonable $2.5 million. If Hughes thought Texier would continue to score two points per game, he would have locked him up for a long time. The truth is, everyone with brainwaves understood that Texier was the beneficiary of the injury at that time and it led to ice time with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. That includes Hughes.

It wouldn’t last long. However, for a player who has shown he can contribute up and down the lineup and score 30 points in a full season, the deal was (and is) 100% good.

Juraj Slafkovsky ($7.6 million)

All things considered, Hughes was taking it More to risk re-signing Juraj Slafkovsky when he did it (July 1, 2024), because, despite being the first choice in 2022, the Slovak was not showing anything possible continued success as a professional athlete. He frustrated as a rookie and, while his second 20-goal, 50-point effort in 2023-24 was a big step in the right direction, the 51 points that followed (after signing an extension) didn’t cement the idea that Slafkovsky would take another.

However, any doubts about Slafkovsky’s ability were forced to eat a lower pie this past year, the first of the agreement. Slafkovsky, who is under contract until 2033 for $7.6 million, scored 30 goals and 73 points, once again establishing himself as a top scorer (while playing most of the season away from Suzuki and Caufield).

With inflation in the coming years, the cap hit will likely be considered a good value if Slafkovsky stays around 50 points. If he continues to produce at the level he has reached, the contract will include road robbery. And, oh yeah, he’s only 22, which means he can honestly go up again.

Cole Caufield ($7.85 million)

It’s understandable if you hesitate to put Caufield in the same stratosphere as Nathan MacKinnon ($12.604 million cap hit), the only player to score 50 goals this past season, who became the first Habs player since Stephane Richer in 1990 to hit the milestone. However, check out all of Caufield’s work:

The 25-year-old has scored 169 goals in 368 games. That translates to an average of nearly 38 goals in 82 games, which still puts him in the same spot as wing players like Kyle Connor ($12 million), Martin Necas ($11.5 million) and Pavel Dorofeyeve ($11 million). The difference for Caufield, who scored a game-point goal for the first time in his career, showing more than one in his game, is the smallest. And very affordable.

Lane Hutson ($8.85 million)

All in all, defenseman Lane Hutson’s 2025 Calder Memorial Trophy won’t justify his $8.85 million hit. That would be the wrong way to look at it. Instead, it was his historic streak from that season that won him the award and earned him the deal, especially since it’s a list he continues to add to, having recently tied Hockey Hall of Famer Larry Robinson’s single-season assist record (for a Canadian defenseman) with 66.

After scoring as many points as a rookie and as recently as 78 as a sophomore (12 goals), Hutson provided incredible value to the Canadiens during his entry-level contract, to put it mildly. His extension, which we signed last October, will go into effect this coming season, and, based solely on his output thus far, should still rank among the best in the entire league.

For added context, one of the defensemen he has been compared to, Quinn Hughes, had just completed the first year of his current deal when Hutson was drafted in the second round of the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. Hughes’ contract, which expires next season, is worth $7.85 million, just $1 million less than Hutson’s, five years later. On top of his signing, Hughes scored 11 goals and 97 points in 129 games. In contrast, Hutson has scored 18 goals and 146 points in 166 games.

Come to whatever conclusion you like… or better yet reserve judgment until Hughes signs his next contract, after Hutson just beat him this past season, albeit by a few points. If you think Hughes’ next contract will ever compare to Hutson’s current one, which expires in 2034, you’ve been seriously ignoring the market.

Nick Suzuki ($7.875 million)

Based on the healthy state of the Canadiens’ salary cap, there actually seems to be a culture at work in the locker room where players decide to leave money on the table, in a high-tax market to begin with. If there’s a tradition to that, it starts with captain Nick Suzuki signing an eight-year, $63 million contract in October 2021 (which starts the 2022-23 season).

Credit where it’s due, as Marc Bergevin was still the general manager at the time (before he was fired a few months later). However, it’s a tradition that has clearly come out of the Hughes era, where the Canadiens’ top players have been locked up for long periods of time, without exceeding $10 million in average annual value. To make that clear, Bergevin also signed goaltender Carey Price to an eight-year, $10.5 million extension in 2017, a deal that officially expired a few days ago. Needless to say, the Habs are in the minority in terms of their salary structure, which is even more impressive considering their recent success (and the success they’re still predicted to enjoy).

It’s amazing to think that Suzuki’s contract was considered one of the worst in the league going into the 2022-23 season. Blame the actor or blame the writer, but there’s a case to be made as it was clear that Suzuki, who was coming off a 61-point season on a runner-up team, was coming into his own at the age of 22 at the time.

Now the undisputed No. 1, Suzuki has improved his point total every season since, not only reaching 100 in 2025-26 (becoming the first Hab since Mats Naslund in 1985-86 to do so) but also capturing the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive player. A horribly outdated test, which is very much against the Suzuki contract. Models are discarded. The deal has never been the worst, but now it’s one of the best in the entire NHL and the Canadiens’ best as we speak, as a result.