A $45 million dollar contract for Cole Caufield?
With the excellent end of the season that he had, it is more and more obvious that Cole Caufield is one of the few untouchables on the Habs right now.
With 35 points, including 22 goals in 35 games under new head coach Martin St-Louis, the small forward will arrive at the team's next training camp with added motivation due to the fact that St-Louis is now the Canadiens' full-time coach.
Caufield will be entering the final year of his entry-level contract this season and earlier this week, teammate Nick Suzuki sent a clear message to the organization that Caufield should be signed long-term as soon as possible.
And now that the message has been sent, we can now get a small idea of what the next contract for number 22 might look like.
As reported by my colleague Keven Mawn ,of Fanadiens.com, insider Marco D'Amico recently published a column on Montreal Hockey Now and it discussed Cole Caufield's next contract.
According to him, it could look like a seven-year deal with an annual salary in the neighborhood of $6 million or $6.5 million (around $45 million total).
As a comparison, he cited the contracts signed by Nikolaj Ehlers and Clayton Keller of the Winnipeg Jets, and Jake Guentzel of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
With the exception of Keller, who is paid $7.15 million per year, Guentzel and Ehlers are paid $6 million per year.
We would be in the same parameters with Caufield's future contract and if he signs a seven-year deal, the Habs will be able to enjoy an explosive duo with Caufield and Suzuki for a long time and who knows, maybe Juraj Slafkovsky would eventually join them to form one of the best trios in the NHL.
But we're not there yet and it will depend on the team's direction between now and the draft in less than a month.
| POLL | ||
How many goals will Caufield score next season? | ||
| Less than 20 | 50 | 7.4 % |
| Between 20 and 30 | 242 | 35.6 % |
| Between 30 and 40 | 315 | 46.4 % |
| 40 + | 72 | 10.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
