AGM Timmins on Romanov and the draft
John Lu: Montreal Canadiens Assistant GM Trevor Timmins believes that Alexander Romanov’s time-on-ice may have been reduced by CSKA because of his comment to play with the Canadiens next season.
Timmins on the draft
Eric Engels of Sportsnet: Montreal Canadiens AGM Timmins oversees the Canadiens’ amateur scouting system and the draft.
Some of the Canadiens scouting processes have remained the same. Timmins has given scouts assignments with due dates. They still hope to have their draft board completed by mid-May.
“Luckily we have an online video database that all my scouts have access to, and we have a game library of almost every game that a draft prospect or player anywhere throughout the world has played, and it’s already broken down these games into shifts, goals, assists, breakout passes etc., along with some analytics. So there’s a lot of work, a lot of information available to our scouts online.”
Timmins hopes that at some point they would be able to hold team combines or an NHL combine to obtain more info on draft eligibles but they realize that may not happen.
Canadiens have salary cap flexibility this offseason and next
Arpon Basu and Marc Antoine Godin of The Athletic: The Montreal Canadiens have resisted spending the past couple seasons and with the salary cap potentially flatlining, it may benefit them now. They have flexibility this offseason and next.
“This is a question Marc (Bergevin) would probably be more comfortable answering than me, but I would say with the cap situation we have right now, we have cap space on our side,” coach Claude Julien said in a conference call Tuesday. “And I know if we were to ever run into a problem, there are many teams around the league who will have far more serious problems than we will. I’m thinking of teams who are at the cap right now and have much more difficult situations to manage. So, I think in our situation, where Marc has left the team with space under the salary cap, we’re in a good position.”
The Canadiens could take advantage of teams that are looking to shed some salary due to a stagnant cap. They could look to go after an impactful player, possibly including their first-round pick or two of their three seconds.
Free agents after their 2021 season include Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault, Jeff Petry, Tomas Tatar and Joel Armia. They might be able to convince Petry, Tatar and Armia to take less money for a longer-termed deal.
If compliance buyouts become an option, Karl Alzner could be bought out.
The Tampa Bay Lightning could be forced to trade someone like Alex Killorn as opposed to buying out someone and not getting a return for them.