In four years, the Habs’ big names will cost on average as much as Josh Anderson did last year

[content-ads]This projection takes into account a salary cap that will hover around $124M, a realistic projection when you look at the evolution of the next few years. The five players will earn a total of $38,375,000, representing roughly 31% of the salary cap.Anderson’s $5.5 million represented roughly 6% of the salary cap last year… and 6 x 5 is 30. Play with the percentage points and we’re close to 31%. Of course, all this could be subject to change when Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov sign their next contracts. That said, the fact that the Habs already have five big core players signed to such reasonable contracts means that they’ll be able to afford guys like Hutson and Demidov without being restricted like the Maple Leafs were with the famous Core Four, for example. In a world where the two guys make about $30M between them (which is a very high projection), that would still leave close to $55M to pay for the supporting cast (or other big names, since the club should be able to afford one or two more).The price of supporting players will also go up over time, we agree…. but if the CH pays most of its top players in 2029-30 what it’s paying Josh Anderson right now, that’ll give Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton (or their successors, if they lose their jobs by then) plenty of room to surround the Habs’ core.

You have to give credit to the management (but also to Marc Bergevin, who signed the Suzuki contract around which the salary scale was built) in this regard, because by thinking long-term like this, they’ve bought themselves a lot of room to manoeuvre in the long term.They’re in a much better position than if they’d given transition contracts to all these youngsters, let’s say.[spacer title=’Overtime’]- Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHp2qhugg4M&feature=youtu.be – Speaking of players signed long-term,

– Indeed.