The Montreal Canadiens have landed an experienced veteran at a tremendous discount. Coming off of a four-year, $16.5MM contract with the Winnipeg Jets, forward Mathieu Perreault has settled for a one-year, $950K deal with the Habs, reports TVA’s Renaud Lavoie. The 33-year-old Quebec native and former QMJHL star returns home after a dozen years away with three different NHL teams.
Lavoie notes that Perreault has always wanted to play for the Canadiens and his new contract says the same thing. Perreault is an incredibly effective defensive forward who often doesn’t get enough credit for excelling at the little things. That value alone exceeds his low-money deal, but Perreault’s willingness to play physical and his offensive contribution make the deal a steal. Perreault is no longer a perennial 40+ point player, but he has quietly kept up a .34 points per game pace over the past three seasons which would put him back in 30-point contention with a full season.
How Montreal decides to utilize Perreault will be the interesting part of this deal. The Stanley Cup finalists appear set in their top nine with most of their roster returning and Mike Hoffman joining the fold and Perreault is able to play a fourth line role, but could certainly push his fellow forwards for ice time and responsibility. At the very least, he is high-end replacement option in case of injury in the top nine while anchoring the fourth line.
Someone has to replace Danault
Same number of syllables and the last names rhyme. More quality work by Bergy.
Jets bottom 6 really taking a hit in the past week.
Like this signing A lot more then hoffman. Would have kept Perry over hoffman
Montreal’s fascination with appeasing their fans with Quebec natives is both interesting and stupid. Does it matter that much to the fans? Coach I get to a degree but I’m pretty sure the Canadiens snagged up the only Quebec FA
They draft a lot of players from Quebec too. Definitely a strange narrative.
Medias are putting a lot of pressure on the team to have as much Quebec natives as possible. I think most fans do not care about that
Yea I believe almost all of there head coaches have always been french to. As far as I can remember Muller was the only non francophone ev
Muller was never HC of the Canadiens, he served as an interm HC one year when Julien had to step away due to health issues, but was not technically their HC. Montreal has always had an affliction of hiring the best dual-lingual HC to please their fan base. Even almost all Captains have had to be dual to appease their fan base. Will hurt them long term if they continue this trend.
I understand it to an extent, but it is kind of petty. If the person can communicate with his team and make them better that should be the merits, not their language capability. That is what a translator is for these days.
Imagine shohei ohtani not being signed by anyone because he isn’t fluent in English. Or Vlad Jr for that matter.
Or imagine McDavid wants to play for thr Habs, but they say no because he isn’t fluently bi-lingual. Ridiculous.
You are unaware of the history of the club and Québec if you think it is ridiculous. The Richard riot being a precursor of the “quiet revolution” is an important chapter of the province and the CH is part of that history.
“The incident likely cost Richard the 1954–55 scoring title (an honour Richard never achieved in his NHL career), played a role in the off-season departure of longtime Canadiens head coach Dick Irvin, and was a precursor to the Quiet Revolution.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
I can’t recall Saku being fluent in frech