Canadiens Should Take Different Route With Dobes’ Contract Than Blackhawks Did With Knight

While their stats are in the same department, their contract situations cannot be further apart. Dobes is signed for only this season and the next with a cap hit of $965,000 per year. He signed the contract over the summer in July. Before the season started, Knight signed a three-year contract extension that begins next year and carries a cap hit of $5.83 million per year; most consider it a bridge deal. So, that raises the question of what the Canadiens should do when the time comes around for Dobes to get a new contract — the good news is that they have options.

How the Canadiens Should Handle Dobes’ Contract

Dobes is currently 24 years old and is playing like a machine. When this two-year contract ends, he’ll be 26 years old and will most likely, and ideally, be in his prime. Hypothetically, he’ll be playing how he is right now, maybe even better, and will even have some playoff games under his belt or even a late run or two, since that’s where the Habs seem to be headed. 

With that being said, a bridge deal with Dobes like the Blackhawks did with Knight shouldn’t be necessary. The Blackhawks gave Knight a bridge because he never had a full starting load before, and they didn’t want to commit to a long-term plan without him having that under his belt. This contract here technically serves that purpose, and it gives two good years of looks at how Dobes continues to handle the load. The talks should jump directly towards how he can be kept in Montreal for his prime. 

First off, the duration should easily be five, six, or seven years. Dobes is going to be one of their main building blocks throughout this whole process when they’re competing for championships. Montreal isn’t going to be able to afford to lose him, and getting him locked up for a long time is going to be key. That’ll bring him to when he’s 31, 32, or 33 years old. 

The problem, like always, is going to be money. Going back to Knight — if he keeps improving, he’s going to be a massively underpaid goaltender at only $5.83 million — and that’s exactly what we expect Dobes to do, too; improve. So, he’ll be worth more than that, and with the rising cap, it’s pretty much guaranteed that he gets more. The Canadiens’ players have been taking some pay cuts recently, like with Lane Hutson’s extension.

A contract extension for Dobes that seems the most fair and likely at the moment is a six-to-seven-year extension at around the $7 to $8.5 million mark. It continues the trend in Montreal of players taking deals that are more team-friendly (if that continues) and will also put Dobes as one of the highest-paid goaltenders in the league if he hits around $8.5 million. With what Dobes brings to the table, that contract will look nice in the books.