Montreal Canadiens Head Toward a Kirby Dach Arbitration Showdown With Three RFAs Unsigned

The Montreal Canadiens are five days from their first salary arbitration hearing in years, and that — more than any trade rumor or schedule release — is what this week was about. Kirby Dach's case goes before an arbitrator on Thursday, July 30, and he's only the most formal piece of unfinished business: Zachary Bolduc and Arber Xhekaj also remain unsigned restricted free agents on a team that just played into the Eastern Conference Final and still has nearly $10 million in cap space. For a front office that spent early July locking up Ivan Demidov for the better part of a decade, the remaining Montreal Canadiens news is all about the middle class of the roster — who gets paid, who gets bridged, and who might get moved.

The Kirby Dach Case Leading Montreal Canadiens News

Dach was the only Canadien among the 15 players league-wide who filed for salary arbitration by the July 5 deadline, and the reason appears to be structural rather than financial. Montreal tendered him a $4 million qualifying offer — but on a two-way contract, which is possible because Dach, with 96 NHL games over the past three seasons, sits short of the 180-game threshold that would have guaranteed him a one-way deal. For a player whose history is one long medical file — he managed just 37 games, eight goals and 15 points last season — the two-way structure reads as a message, and electing arbitration was the counter-message. The gamble cuts both ways: an arbitrator can award as little as 85 percent of his prior salary, putting the floor around $3.4 million. Hearings league-wide run July 20 through August 1, and nothing stops the two sides from settling before Thursday. Most cases do. But as of this writing, no deal has been reported, and a hearing — where the team formally argues its own player's shortcomings into the record — is the kind of thing that tends to linger in a relationship.

Bolduc, Xhekaj and the Rest of the RFA File

The Bolduc negotiation looks friendlier. Per La Presse's Guillaume Lefrançois, the Canadiens have put two frameworks on the table for the 23-year-old winger: a two-year bridge in the neighborhood of $3.6 million per season, or a five-year deal at $6 million-plus. Bolduc himself sounded relaxed about it earlier this month: "I think it's coming... Of course I'd like to settle in for the long term, but on the other hand, it's all about the money." That's about as honest as contract talk gets, and the gap between those two structures is really a bet on which version of Bolduc shows up over the next half-decade.

Xhekaj is murkier. The Montreal Gazette reported this week that trade rumors are swirling around the unsigned defenseman, with Philadelphia among the reportedly interested teams. Nothing is close, by any account, but an unsigned RFA plus a crowded left side of the blue line plus a rival with interest is how these stories usually start. One near-miss also surfaced this week: Montreal had early free-agent interest in Anthony Mantha but never made a formal offer, and he signed a two-year, $9.5 million deal in New Jersey instead.

An Offseason Built Around Demidov

The defining move of Montreal's summer came on July 1, when the team signed Ivan Demidov to an eight-year, $73 million extension — a $9.125 million cap hit beginning in 2027-28, with a reported $57.6 million paid in signing bonuses and a 10-team no-trade list in the final three seasons. That's a massive number for a 20-year-old with one NHL season, and also probably a bargain: Demidov led all rookies in goals and points, finished as Calder runner-up, and will be playing on his entry-level deal one more year while the cap keeps climbing. The other structural bets: goaltender Jakub Dobes re-signed for three years at roughly $5.36 million per, and Brendan Gallagher's 14-season run ended with a trade to Vancouver in late June, with Montreal reportedly retaining half his cap hit. Joe Veleno wasn't qualified and left for the Rangers. And the front office isn't done window-shopping — Elliotte Friedman reported the Canadiens are still hunting a younger top-six forward and "would be aggressive, like really aggressive," with Columbus' Kirill Marchenko among the names floated in the rumor economy. Take that last part with the usual July salt.

Last Season Raised the Bar

All of this maneuvering happens in the shadow of a season that changed expectations entirely. Montreal went 48-24-10 for 106 points, third in the Atlantic, then survived two straight seven-game series — Tampa Bay in the first round, Buffalo in the second — before Carolina, the eventual Stanley Cup champion, ended things in five in the Conference Final. The scoring core announced itself as one of the league's best young groups: Nick Suzuki hit 101 points, Cole Caufield scored 51 goals on his way to 88 points, Lane Hutson piled up 78 from the blue line — a contract The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn just called the best in the NHL — and Juraj Slafkovsky added 73. Demidov's 62-point rookie year came with 82 games played and a playoff run besides. In net, Dobes went 29-10 across 43 appearances and rookie Jacob Fowler posted a .908 in 17 games, which is why the organization felt fine letting the crease stay young.

Prospects, the Draft and a Hall of Famer

Montreal's June draft class was small but pointed. First-rounder Gleb Pugachyov, a 6-foot-3 forward taken 26th overall, drew a stylistic Tom Wilson comparison from the team's own management — make of that what you will. The Canadiens then traded up with Carolina to grab right-shot defenseman Timofei Runtso at 57, and took 6-foot-3 Dartmouth defenseman Cooper Cleaves at 93. Development camp ran June 30 through July 2 in Brossard with 37 invitees, headlined by Michael Hage and Alexander Zharovsky — the two names most often attached to that "future top-six" conversation the front office keeps having. One prospect wrinkle from this week: Swiss club EV Zug is pursuing a loan for 21-year-old forward Vinzenz Rohrer, per Swiss reports, though Montreal would have to sign off and no decision has been made. And the franchise's recent past got its due in June, when Carey Price was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Cap Space and the Montreal Canadiens Calendar

Even after the Demidov deal, Montreal projects at about $94.2 million against the new $104 million ceiling — roughly $9.8 million in space, with only the Dach, Bolduc and Xhekaj contracts left to write. That's a genuinely enviable position, and it's why Friedman described the Canadiens' situation as "excellent." The runway ahead:

• July 30: Dach arbitration hearing (settlement possible any time before)
• Sept. 19-26: A five-game preseason, including a Kraft Hockeyville date against Ottawa in Trois-Rivières on Sept. 21
• Sept. 29: Season opener at Toronto on the NHL's opening night, kicking off the league's first 84-game schedule since 1993-94
• Oct. 6: Home opener at the Bell Centre — against Stanley Cup champion Carolina, of all teams
• Oct. 25: Heritage Classic vs. Winnipeg at Princess Auto Stadium, the franchise's third outdoor Heritage game

Training camp dates haven't been announced, but preseason home tickets go on sale August 5, which tells you how close this all is.

Put the week together and the picture is a team whose hardest problems are the kind every front office wants: how to pay a rookie sensation (done), how to structure deals for three useful twenty-somethings (in progress), and how to add one more forward to a roster that just went three rounds deep (shopping). The Dach hearing on Thursday is the one item with real downside, and even that is more awkward than dangerous. The next month of Montreal Canadiens news should close out the paperwork — and then the team that pushed the eventual champions gets to find out whether last spring was a ceiling or a floor.