After last season, Canadiens goaltender Samuel Montembeault and GM Kent Hughes both expressed interest in trying to work out a contract extension. However, the netminder recently told Simon-Olivier Lorange of La Presse that there have been no discussions on that front at this time.
The 26-year-old is coming off his best NHL performance so far, getting into a career-best 40 games last season while posting a 3.42 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage (also a career-high). On the surface, those numbers don’t stand out, but Montreal used a young and inexperienced back end last season and his save percentage was 10 points better than veteran Jake Allen.
Montembeault’s performance helped to earn him a spot on Canada’s entry at the Worlds back in May. He quickly locked down the No. 1 spot and made seven starts, putting up an impressive 1.42 GAA with a .939 SV% to help take home a gold medal.
There is a bit of a logjam between the pipes in Montreal with Montembeault and Allen being joined by recent trade acquisition Casey DeSmith. Prospect Cayden Primeau is also waiver-eligible for the first time as well and could conceivably also be in the mix. However, it won’t be Montembeault getting moved to make room as Hughes reached out to the netminder’s agent to confirm as much.
Montembeault is entering the final year of his contract which carries an AAV of $1M. With a total of just 103 NHL appearances under his belt so far, he likely doesn’t have enough of a track record to command top-level backup money, but something in the high-$2M range or low-$3M range could be doable if he puts together a similar showing in 2023-24. But with Montreal’s current priority seeming to be trying to flip DeSmith and Jeff Petry (also acquired last weekend), it might be a little while yet before talks on a new deal for Montembeault begin.
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