Photo of Gary Bettman and Ivan Demidov

Photo credit: NHL

Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens will have to deal with a new factor heading into next season.

It’s all well and good to give performance bonuses to young players and make use of the long-term injured reserve list, but that also comes with a fairly significant penalty.

Due to the various bonuses given to Canadiens players by Kent Hughes this season, please note that Montreal will face a $1.727 million salary cap penalty for next season.

That means $1.727 million less to spend for the 2025-26 season.

It’s not disastrous by any means, but still important to highlight.

The Canadiens will face a nearly $2 million salary cap penalty starting this summer

This penalty could even climb to more than $2.3 million, depending on the performance of young Ivan Demidov in the playoffs.

Demidov could add to that total with:

– $25,000 for playing 5 playoff games
– $30,000 for playing 10 playoff games
– $525,000 if he is named Playoff “MVP” and wins the Conn Smythe Trophy

Something to keep an eye on.

As for the bonuses themselves, the ones already contributing to the nearly $1.8 million penalty break down as follows:

“The most notable bonuses are as follows:

– Lane Hutson, likely Calder Trophy winner, earned the maximum of $750,000 in potential A bonuses.
– Juraj Slafkovsky, former 1st overall pick, earned $500,000 in A bonuses for ice time and his plus-minus.
– Kaiden Guhle reached the maximum of $420,000 in potential A bonuses.
– Jayden Struble earned $57,500 in bonuses for games played.”

– PuckPedia

A small added challenge for Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton

Definitely something to keep in mind for this summer and next season!

“The Montreal Canadiens used LTIR again this season to ice their roster, which comes at a cost, especially with so many players still on their entry-level contracts.

The Canadiens will have a $1.7M penalty, as of now, toward their cap space next season.”

– Marco D’Amico

It still leaves a decent amount of wiggle room for management to attempt some offseason acquisitions.