LeBrun: Habs As Cap Strong As Any Team In The League
On Wednesday night’s episode of the Sick Podcast, Tony Marinaro and his guest Pierre LeBrun discussed the Montreal Canadiens’ cap situation in the future, after the recent signing of Alexandre Texier, particularly as of the 2027-28 season. This year is important to look at, as the Habs will have both the Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher deals coming off the books. With that being said, Marinaro and LeBrun came to the conclusion that the Habs are in amazing shape to add depth to their core group. LeBrun even stated that he believes the Canadiens are in as good a shape as any team going forward, with their rebuild slowly coming to an end. The reality of their situation goes beyond just letting go of two bad contracts at forward.
The #GoHabsGo are building one of the best salary cap structure in the NHL!@PierreVLeBrun: “They’re as cap strong as any team in the league right now”#thesickpodcast @TonyMarinaro pic.twitter.com/MMjUIq8A9h
— The Sick Podcast with Tony Marinaro (@thesickpodcasts) January 15, 2026
When looking at the Canadiens’ contracts for the 2027-28 season, it shows that the team has 5 forwards currently locked up for the 2027-28 which total up to $28.675 million, which includes the newly signed Texier. However, the best part is that 3 of the Habs’ core forwards (Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Juraj Slafkovsky) are all locked up until at least 2030 with cap hits under $8 million. As a result, the Habs will have plenty of space to sign both Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov before the summer of 2027 with contracts that could look healthy for both players.
Percentage of the #GoHabsGo salary cap at the time of signing their eight-year extension:
– Nick Suzuki (2021): 9.66%
– Cole Caufield (2023): 9.52%
– Juraj Slafkovsky (2024): 8.64%— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) July 1, 2024
After that the Canadiens will still have lots of money that they could use to bring in talent lower in the forward group. Not to mention that both Michael Hage and likely Alexander Zharovsky will still be on their entry-level contracts during the 2027-28 campaign at cap hits around $1 million.
Wow..broberg has been solid since he got to STL, but 8 million solid… don’t think so.
Meanwhile
Dobson 9.5
Hutson 8.85
Matheson 6
Guhle 5.5Thank you HuGo and to the players for accepting what they got#gohabsgo https://t.co/DZYWO67ydV
— Get PuckD Podcast: A Montreal Canadiens Podcast (@GETPUCKDPodcast) January 10, 2026
Looking at the team’s defence, things look even better for the 2027-28 season, as the Habs currently have their top 4 defencemen (Noah Dobson, Lane Hutson, Mike Matheson, and Kaiden Guhle) all locked up on very team-friendly deals that total $29.900 million. It may look rich when comparing to the forwards, but when you consider all 4 players are the top of the lineup guys, then it shows just how great the value that the Habs have currently for their defensive group. Now, all they will need to fill out on defence are guys who will likely be playing lower in the lineup. This should include David Reinbacher, who will likely be a cheap prove-it deal just coming out of his entry-level contract. This leaves a good amount of money to help round out their team.
Then in goal, the Habs will only have Jacob Fowler in the last year of his entry-level contract locked up. With that being said, the Canadiens currently have 5 forwards, 4 defensemen, and 1 goalie that round out to $59,498,333 in salary paid to mostly top-of-the-lineup players.
This should mean that the Canadiens will have around $53 million dollars to fill out the rest of the lineup if we take into account that the expected salary cap for the 2027-28 season is $113.5 million. Even if we consider that Demidov and Kapanen will likely total about $15 million between the two of them before the 2027 off-season, that still leaves a ton of salary for them to use to improve their team into a true Stanley Cup contender. Therefore, with the way the cap situation is looking, the Canadiens have the potential to truly build one of the best teams for a good 4-5 years starting in the 2027-28 season (even if Suzuki is up for around $12-13 million in the summer of 2030). With the help of their capologist and assistant general manager, John Sedgewick, the management duo of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton have done a terrific job setting up the team for the future financially.
What are your thoughts on the Habs’ cap situation?
