What's Price worth?

The Habs have a few remaining pieces to round out their roster for next year, the biggest of which is RFA Carey Price. As reported here earlier, Gauthier probably made a huge blunder by trading Halak and not signing a decent goalie to replace him (Alex Auld certainly doesn't qualify). Gauthier had the right idea by trading Sergei Kostitsyn for essentially the negotiating rights to Dan Ellis (and Dustin Boyd), as Ellis was one of the better goalies available. Maybe not as good as Turco or Nabokov, but certainly on a second tier.

But he still managed to fumble away that opportunity, letting Ellis sign elsewhere for a mere $500k more than what he eventually signed Alex Auld for. Now Price's agent is in the driver's seat, knowing that his client is the undisputed #1 goaltender going forward.

But this mistake aside, what should Price be paid? His cap figure from his original contract stood at $2.2M. But that certainly was inflated by his potential, not by what he had actually accomplished.

And the Habs can't afford much more than that anyway. According to capgeek.com Gauthier has about $4.7M left to sign Price as well as add a couple of forwards. The site makes a few assumptions about who will actually make the roster, including Boyd and Lars Ellers. These are reasonable assumptions, so one only needs to figure out who the two remaining forwards would be to arrive at the remaining cap space for Price.

Those forwards could be any of the following:

• Max Pacioretty ($910k cap hit), another first rounder who could push Benoit Pouliot, Tom Pyatt and Mathieu Darche for playing time.
• Ryan White ($850k), a gritty forward who would be the only right handed centerman on the team.
• Alexander Avtsin ($607k), a big right winger who will only make around $67k playing for the Bulldogs. He could have made much more staying in the KHL, so he must think his chances of sticking with the big club are fairly good.
• Ben Maxwell ($850k), who managed to grab a postseason roster spot with the Habs even though he could have been gaining valuable experience with the Bulldogs' own deep playoff run.
  

The safe bet for the remaining two spots would be on Maxwell and White. That would leave about $3M left for Price. One would hope that Gauthier would leave some cap room for future transactions, and sign Price for a more reasonable $2M cap hit. But Price's agent has almost certainly done the same math, and knows he can get more. And hence the prolonged standoff.

2010-11 Habs

The Habs made quite a bit of headway in securing next year's lineup, by signing all of their RFA's except Price and Lapierre, and their lone must-sign UFA, Tomas Plekanec. Given these signings plus the Halak trade, the lineup for 2010-11 is taking shape.

The goaltending and defense situations are the most obvious. Price has been handed the reins again as starting goaltender (a big mistake on Gauthier's part, at least from a negotiation standpoint). Alex Auld will be his backup. Price has a lot of potential, and we'll see if he can live up to it, especially with the rule changes governing pad sizes.

On the blueline, both Mara and Bergeron will no doubt not be re-signed. Instead, Gauthier will go with Markov, Subban, Hamrlik, Spacek, Gorges and Gill. O'Byrne will serve as the seventh. This gives Martin a better mix of left and right handed defensemen than last year. It also has a nice mix of youth and veteran experience, as well as stay at home types vs the offensive minded. This is clearly the strength of the Habs lineup.

Up front, the only changes are the UFA's that couldn't be re-signed due to cap issues: Moore and Metropolit. Moore was brought in to improve the Habs' percentages on faceoffs. He did a decent job in the regular season, but fell off precipitously in the playoffs. Lars Ellers will probably take his place, given his projection as a future second line center man.

Metropolit was a gritty fourth liner, and had a much needed right handed shot (used to good effect on the PP). But he doesn't fit with the Habs' desire for speed. Gauthier acquired and signed Dustin Boyd as a potential fourth line center man, but it says here that Boyd is just insurance in case Ryan White doesn't work out. White showed real promise last year, and would be the only right handed center in the lineup.

So that would probably leave the forward lines looking something like the following:

Cammalleri - Plekanec - Kostitsyn
Pouliot - Gomez - Gionta

Moen - Ellers - Lapierre

Pyatt - White - Darche

Kostitsyn is a RFA next year. This is his last chance to prove that he wasn't yet another first round bust for the Habs. There are a few others that could make the lineup and push players like Pouliot, White and Darche for playing time. Pacioretty and Boyd would be the most likely candidates to round out the lineup, but JT Wyman's size and right handed shot would fit nicely. Ben Maxwell is another candidate and got a long look last year, but rarely made an impact.

Overpaid, Pt II

In the last installment we examined the contract given to Tomas Plekanec. It looks like he was overpaid, especially for someone who hadn't hit the UFA market yet and wanted to stay a Hab.

Maybe the biggest impact of the Plekanec contract was on the backup goalie position. Earlier we presumed Gauthier wouldnt simply hand the keys over to Price, given Price's inconsistent play. So Gauthier traded malcontent Sergei Kostitsyn for essentially the negotiating rights to Dustin Boyd and, more importantly, Dan Ellis. Gauthier managed to sign Boyd, but Ellis went elsewhere -- for only $500k more than what the Habs ended up giving Alex Auld.

When one looks at the probable lineup for next year, its not hard to see that the Habs only had about $1M to offer a backup goaltender. But here's where the Plekanec contract comes back into play: if the Habs had $500k more in cap room, Ellis or (better yet) Johan Hedberg could have been in play. Both signed for $1.5M per and both are goalies with a much better track record than Auld. Even when Gauthier traded for the negotiating rights to Ellis, he still couldn't close the deal. Gauthier was probably trying to pitch the $1M cap hit contract, and Ellis knew he was worth more.

It doesnt stop there: now that Price's agent knows that Price is the man, his bargaining position suddenly got much better. And the Alex Auld signing only reinforced that position. If Ellis or Hedberg were signed instead, the message to Price and his agent would be: we still have options.

The Plekanec contract may have also affected how Gauthier could improve his corps of forwards. He wanted to leave it mostly intact, but obviously could not afford to re-sign Moore and Metropolit (at least not at their current salaries).

Still, the Habs desperately need size and some grit, something that was only provided consistently by Moen and Lapierre during the playoffs. And that size and grit was available, for a decent price: Adam Burish was signed by the Stars for only $1.15M in cap hit money. His Stanley Cup experience and right handed shot would have been an added bonus too. But instead the Habs signed Dustin Boyd, for $500K less.

So if Plekanec signs for a much more reasonable $4M per, the Habs would have had a chance at Burish, Ellis and Hedberg. Much better than Boyd and Auld.