The Canadian | Shea Weber traded to Golden Knights, pending further changes

A strange page in the Canadian’s recent history has just been turned. And a few new chapters could be written in the not too distant future.

Simon Olivier Lorange
The Press

The organization traded its captain, defenseman Shea Weber, to the Vegas Golden Knights for forward Evgenii Dadonov. Neither team withheld salary.

In 2021-22, the 33-year-old Russian had 43 points in 78 games. He will have spent only one season in the desert, having previously aligned himself with the Florida Panthers and the Ottawa Senators.

This transaction is unique in that it involves a star player, one of the best defensemen in the NHL of the 2010s, who however did not play last season and who, in all likelihood, will not play at all . Due to multiple injuries, including knee and foot injuries, Weber has spent the past year at home in British Columbia, rather than Montreal. It was an open secret that he would be traded – a transaction came very close to being concluded last March. All that remained was to find a team… and the right moment.

So it was the Knights who answered the call. The talks have intensified over the past few days, to the point that Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes informed Weber on Wednesday of an impending trade. “He was at his son’s baseball game; he asked me if he could call me back, but I preferred to tell him on the spot in order to prevent him from learning it from someone else, ”said Hughes in a press briefing. Virtual.

Flexibility

The GM has never hidden his game: the quest for “flexibility” is the guiding principle of the present phase of reconstruction that his team is beginning. Financial flexibility, of course, as the Habs finished last in the general standings in 2021-2022, with the heaviest payroll in the circuit.

On a strictly mathematical level, in the short term, Hughes gives himself considerable leeway, without being spectacular. Dadonov will earn 5 million next season, so the CH will save almost 3 million, since Weber will pocket 7.857 million. However, with a payroll very close to the ceiling in force, and with some players looking for a new contract, that does not solve all the problems.

It is rather in the medium and long term that the difference will be most felt. Dadonov will be an unrestricted free agent after next season, so we can completely wipe his name off the books if we want. As for Weber, he is still under contract for four long years, which he will probably spend on the long-term injured list.

Hughes is also pleased to have got his hands on “a player who can help us offensively”.

Weber’s situation was also inseparable from that of Carey Price. The goalkeeper’s state of health being still uncertain, we preferred not to find ourselves faced with the possibility of inheriting, once again, more than 18.5 million dollars from the LBLT.

Having players on this roster confers certain benefits, including being able to stretch salary limits. That’s what the Golden Knights, who have many high-paying stars in their ranks, are trying to do. However, this is done at the cost of inconveniences, in particular the obligation, when the LBLT is active at the end of a season, to defer the payment of performance bonuses to the following year. The Canadian has also had a painful experience of it: after having spent the entire 2021-2022 season under the LBLT regime, he will have to pay 1.13 million in bonuses carried over to 2022-2023. The management of the club, starting with Kent Hughes and his assistant John Sedgwick, have been saying publicly for months that they would prefer to return to the usual regime.

listening

Kent Hughes did not attempt to escape. His phone is ringing with increasing ardor as the draft and the free agent opening approach.

In the context we know, with a club to rebuild from the cellar to the attic, his ears are wide open.

“We have to listen to all the options to improve ourselves,” he confirmed. We will listen to almost everyone. It’s the prudent thing to do when you look at where we ended up in the standings. »

We suspect that the untouchables are called Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, maybe even Kaiden Guhle and Alexander Romanov. A few other promising young players in the organization could also be added.

Apart from this reduced group, nothing seems excluded. Hughes cited the example of Josh Anderson. Many teams have inquired about its availability over the past few months. However, he is still a member of the Montreal Canadiens. We care about him, we assure you. We are therefore not trying to get rid of it, “but we did not say that it was not exchangeable”, insisted the DG.

The same goes for newcomer Dadonov. We expect to see him at training camp in September…until proven otherwise. “Do we intend to trade him?” No. Could it be traded at the trade deadline [2023] or during the summer? We will listen,” added Hughes.

Cole Caufield, he pointed out, is entering the final year of his first professional contract, which pays him less than $1 million annually. His next deal will be much more lucrative.

The CH shopping is therefore far from over, and big names in the club could logically change addresses during the summer, or even in the coming days. Jeff Petry’s name invariably comes up in trade plans, though Hughes doesn’t expect a deal to be “imminent.”

The mark of his predecessor Marc Bergevin on the team is still visible. But little by little, Kent Hughes put his own stamp on his club. To write history in his own way.

Prolific career

By exchanging Shea Weber, Kent Hughes ended an association with CH which has lasted since the summer of 2016.

In five seasons in Montreal, the devastating slapshot defenseman tallied 146 points, including 58 goals, in 275 season games, in addition to 14 points in 48 playoff games. In October 2018, it became the 30^e captain in franchise history, succeeding Max Pacioretty.

It was in the city of country that Weber had his best career moments. In the first half of the 2010 decade, he was recognized as one of the most dominant fullbacks in the league. He represented Canada at the Olympics twice – Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014.

The NHL shook in 2016 when the Canadiens acquired him in return for defender PK Subban. For years, debates over which team won on the exchange have divided supporters.

Although he was in his thirties when he moved to the Canadiens, Weber had some good times in the blue-white-red uniform, including finishing sixth in the Norris Trophy ballot in 2016-17. He was also an inspiration to his teammates en route to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2021.

Despite a colossal physical effort, he was weakened for most of the last playoffs. He nevertheless played an average of 25 minutes per game. In the last game of the final, he was his club’s most used player.

Injuries caught up with him. In the last four seasons, he has only played 65% of the games in season. The 2021 final will have been his swan song.

In July 2021, the former general manager Marc Bergevin had spread out the list of injuries from which he knew that his captain suffered: ankle, foot, thumb, knee.

The 36-year-old veteran hasn’t played for the season and it’s common knowledge that his career on the ice is over.

Weber, a native of Sicamous, B.C., was a second-round pick (49^e in total) of the Nashville Predators in 2003.