With the trade deadline about two and a half months away, some teams have started to assess what it might cost to keep some of their pending free agents around. The Canadiens don’t appear to be one of them. Center Jake Evans acknowledged that there have yet to be any discussions about a new deal while Pierre LeBrun recently reported on a TSN Insider Trading segment that the same goes for veteran blueliner David Savard.
The 34-year-old is in his fourth season with Montreal after inking a four-year, $14MM contract with them in the 2021 offseason. Over his first three years with the team, he continued to be a reliable top-four defensive blueliner, albeit one who dealt with injury issues as he missed at least 20 games in each of those campaigns. With that and the Canadiens rebuilding, Savard entered the season as a speculative trade candidate.
This season, Savard has seen his ice time dip a bit, checking in at 18:44 per game which would be the lowest he has had since the 2013-14 campaign with Columbus. That is due to often lining up on the third pairing at even strength. However, he leads Montreal in shorthanded playing time at 3:38 per night, a mark that ranks second in the NHL to Utah’s Mikhail Sergachev. Savard has nine points in 32 games thus far while adding a team-high 84 blocked shots.
While Savard entered the year as one of the better right-shot rental options on the back end, the reduced role isn’t going to help his trade value. Generally speaking, contending teams won’t want to move a high draft pick or strong prospect for a player likely to be their fifth defender. Instead, they’ll be looking to upgrade those spots with more secondary pieces.
With that in mind, it might make sense for the Canadiens to entertain the idea of keeping Savard around a little longer. While they got some veteran insurance on the right side of their back end when they acquired Alexandre Carrier just before the roster freeze, there’s certainly room to keep both around past this season.
Logan Mailloux and David Reinbacher are Montreal’s top prospects on that side of the defense and while Mailloux might be ready for a full-time role next season, Reinbacher has yet to play in 2024-25 due to a knee injury and probably won’t be ready to play full-time in the NHL next season. If they don’t keep Savard, it stands to reason that they might look to add a veteran on that side sometime over the offseason.
In the coming weeks, the Canadiens will need to assess whether they want to keep Savard around a little longer at a price tag that would likely check in around his current $3.5MM AAV. Otherwise, expect to see his name in trade speculation as we get closer to the March 7th trade deadline.
