MONTREAL — A $2.15-million, one-year contract for a six-foot-three, 232-pound, 35-year-old winger who has over 1000 games of NHL experience and is still producing at a reasonable rate is hardly a gamble.
You could even say the Montreal Canadiens stole Chris Kreider after the remainder of the player’s six-year, $45.5-million contract with the Anaheim Ducks was ripped up on Thursday.
There was one year left on it, with $4 million owed to Kreider, and he turned away from it — and from bigger-money deals, according to his agent, Matt Keator — to come to Montreal for what will be a maximum of $5.4 million if he achieves bonuses for games played and goals scored.
We’re not yet sure how many games Kreider will have to play, nor how many goals he’ll have to score to max out, but potting 22 goals over 75 games last season landed him in a Canadiens jersey.
The rest, from what we were told, was about fit and comfort for both the player and the team.
Yes, the connection between Kreider and former New York Rangers general manager and current Canadiens president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton certainly helped. As did the one between him and former-Rangers-teammate-turned-Canadiens-coach Martin St. Louis. And with beloved former Rangers athletic therapist Jim Ramsay and former team services maven Alex Case now in Montreal, Kreider will feel that much more at home.
Perhaps not as much as the Boxford, Mass., native might have felt had he chosen to don the spoked B of the Boston Bruins…
The Canadiens were looking for more offensive punch and felt confident Kreider could bring some of it. They were hoping for more speed and size on the wing and believed Kreider could bring some of it. They were angling for special-teams depth and were convinced Kreider could bring some of it.
They’ll hardly pay him anything if he fails to, and they’ll be happy to pay him the maximum he can earn if he succeeds, making this an easy decision.
If management was concerned about how Canadiens fans would receive Kreider, they probably got over it, thinking the player’s willingness to regularly crash the net would win them over.
Oh sure, up until Saturday morning, Kreider was still public enemy No. 1 in Montreal for going skates-first into Carey Price during Game 1 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Final. But if Kreider hadn’t fully shed that status by the time his contract with the Canadiens was announced on Saturday afternoon, we’re betting he will as soon as he barrels his way to the crease and scores his first goal at the Bell Centre.
That Kreider is still good enough to have it assisted on by any of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slakfovsky or Ivan Demidov is a big part of the draw here; he’s been a top-six forward since stepping into the league in 2013, and there’s little doubt he can still be one in Montreal.
If not for the Ducks needing to free up cap space to give 41-goal scorer Cutter Gauthier the enormous extension he’s about to get, Kreider would likely still be one in Anaheim. He was a fixture on the top line last season, but he became a far less permanent one on the summer day linemate Leo Carlsson signed Philadelphia’s bank-breaking offer sheet, which the Ducks inevitably decided to match.
Still, Kreider’s departure leaves a hole in Anaheim — and not just at five-on-five, where the bulk of his 25 points were produced alongside Carlsson and Troy Terry.
He also averaged over three minutes per game on the power play, and he even chipped in 30 seconds per game on the penalty kill.
Even if those ice-time allotments flip in Montreal — the Canadiens could use more help on the penalty kill than on the power play — Kreider will be just as relevant here as he was in Anaheim. Especially when you factor in his experience.
The Canadiens, who were the youngest participant in last year’s playoffs, need it. Especially with former elder statesman Brendan Gallagher now in Vancouver.
Kreider arrives two years older than any of his Canadiens teammates, and with at least 226 more games played in the league (regular season and playoffs combined) than any of them. That’s worth close to $2.15 million on its own.
His friendly deal also leaves the team with $7.63 million of cap space, which is a healthy amount to not only sign Zachary Bolduc and/or Arber Xhekaj but also make other changes between now and the start of the season.
We believe general manager Kent Hughes is currently working very hard to make sure Kreider isn’t the last one.