Montreal Canadiens: Could Shea Weber be Traded?

The Montreal Canadiens have reached the halfway point of their season with a record of 8-26-7.

Obviously a sell off is going to happen before the trade deadline. The question isn’t whether players on expiring contracts like Ben Chiarot, Mathieu Perreault, Brett Kulak and Chris Wideman will be traded. Those guys are as good as gone.

The question is who doesn’t get traded? Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Alexander Romanov are probably pretty safe. Everybody else should be cautious before deciding to renovate the kitchen or upgrade their current living situation. They could be gone any day now.

The Canadiens collapse this season could be blamed on a lot of things, but the fact Carey Price and Shea Weber have not played a game is definitely one of them. Price could be back before the trade deadline but Weber’s season, and career, are effectively over.

But, even Shea Weber could be traded as no one is safe on this team right now.

If Weber is going to be traded, there is really only one team that would want to acquire him. That would be the same team that has acquired Dave Bolland, Pavel Datsyuk, Marian Hossa and Chris Pronger long after they played their final NHL game.

The Arizona Coyotes of course.

Weber’s contract does not have a lot of value for a team like the Montreal Canadiens because they are at the cap. In fact, the team is well above the cap and because of Nick Suzuki’s big contract extension kicking in next season, they are going to need to shed salary before the 2022-23 season begins. They can tiptoe around Weber’s contract by putting him on long-term injured reserve, but that comes with some complications since you would have to spend over the cap to benefit from putting a player on LTIR.

It would give the Canadiens a lot more flexibility if they could move Weber’s contract out.

Weber has four more years on his deal after this season with a cap hit of just over $7.8 million. Why would a team want to acquire that?

Well, Weber only makes a total of $6 million in those four years. That means if a team that doesn’t want to spend a lot of money (the Arizona Coyotes) were to acquired Weber, he would eat up a total of $31,428,572 cap dollars over the next four years while only paying out $6 million. That basically saves the franchise a total of $25.5 million in player expenses over the next four seasons.

Teams have to use a minimum amount of cap space each season and it is currently set at $60.2 million. The Coyotes have just $30 million committed to players for next season. Acquiring Weber would count for nearly $8 million in cap space but barely cost them any real money.

This would really help them tank for Connor Bedard next season.

Four years is a long time for them to have Weber’s contract, but the Arizona Coyotes are looking at a cash-saving cow here if they want. They are still not going to give up a ton for Weber, but they would be interested in acquiring him.

If you look back at the Pavel Datsyuk trade, the Canadiens and Coyotes could pull off something similar this offseason. Datsyuk was traded from Detroit to Arizona, after moving back to Russia, along with the 16th overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. The Red Wings acquired the 20th overall pick, the 53rd overall pick in the second round, and veteran depth centre Joe Vitale.

It was thought the Red Wings would have to give up a top prospect or early pick to get rid of Datsyuk’s contract at that time. Since the deal was signed after Datsyuk turned 35, the cap hit was going to stay on the Red Wings books even while the player played in Russia.

However, if you look back at that trade and take Datsyuk’s name out of it, the trade still makes sense for both teams. The 16th overall pick for the 20th, 53rd and a depth player? You wouldn’t yell at the tv if your team made that trade. Then, insert Datsyuk so the Red Wings don’t have to eat the cap hit and so the Coyotes don’t have to pay that money to anyone.

It was a win-win for both teams and the same could be said for Weber.

I wouldn’t expect much of a return, but don’t be shocked to see Shea Weber traded at the 2022 NHL Draft in a flip of second round picks between the Canadiens and Coyotes.