After non-tendering him earlier in the week, the Canadiens have decided to bring back Rem Pitlick, announcing that they’ve re-signed the forward to a two-year contract. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Sportsnet’s Eric Engels reports that the deal carries an AAV of $1.1M.
The 25-year-old bounced around a bit last season. He spent the preseason with Nashville before being waived and claimed by Minnesota. Pitlick was relatively productive with the Wild as he had 11 points in 20 games but found himself back on the wire back in January. Montreal was dealing with several injuries and missing quite a few players due to a COVID outbreak so they scooped him up.
With the Canadiens, Pitlick had an opportunity to play a much bigger role and made the most of it, picking up nine goals and 17 assists in 46 games while averaging over 17 minutes per game. However, GM Kent Hughes acknowledged during his press conference that they didn’t want to risk an arbitration hearing with Pitlick which resulted in his non-tender on Monday.
Following Saturday’s earlier swap that saw Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling go to Pittsburgh, the move freed up a roster spot up front and enough cap space to bring Pitlick back. Now, following Pitlick’s addition, the team has a little over $1.2M in cap space remaining, per CapFriendly. That won’t be enough to sign the recently-acquired Kirby Dach so it appears that Montreal may need to make another move to trim money at some point this summer.
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