The Montreal Canadiens have signed restricted free agent forward Kirby Dach to a new 4 year contract which will keep him with the club through 2025-26.
The deal is worth $13.5M and will carry an AAV of $3.375M against the cap. Dach, 21, is fresh off his 3rd NHL campaign with the Blackhawks, where he’s accumulated 59pts (19G, 40A) over 152 games in Chicago.
A former 3rd overall pick in 2019, the 6’4” centre missed most of the 2020-21 campaign due to injury, but bounced back last year appearing in 70 games for the Hawks.
Dach was acquired by Montreal this summer in exchange for a 1st and a 3rd round pick in this year’s draft.
With the signing, Montreal is now $10.2M over the salary cap, however it’s largely expected that longtime goaltender Carey Price, who carries a $10.5M cap hit, will be placed on long-term injured reserve. Price, who appeared in only 5 games for the Canadiens last year, is still not 100% recovered from a lingering knee injury which has created concern about his future.
GM Kent Hughes confirmed this notion when he announced that the club didn’t believe that Price would be ready to play this season.
Dach now joins a revamped Canadiens roster which includes Michael Matheson, Sean Monahan, Evgeni Dadonov, and Juraj Slafkovsky amongst others. The club also said goodbye to Jeff Petry, Alexander Romanov, and Shea Weber, in addition to forward Ryan Poehling over the last few months as well.
The Habs kick off their preseason against the New Jersey Devils on September 26th.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: CloutsnChara Sports Cards. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.