dlbalr

To piggyback off this, for anyone wondering, the maximum signing bonus for an ELC is $97,500.

More specifically, that's the Canadiens' site on THN, not THN itself, it's different writers. It's notable as that site changed hands on July 1st and the new writers seem to be primarily focusing on 'super happy positive' pieces (while clearly trying to meet a daily quota of articles) instead of the balanced and informative articles that came from the former team who ran that site (the old All Habs crew).

Laval signs Zack Hayes to a one-year, two-way deal: https://theahl.com/rocket-sign-hayes-to-ahl-contract https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/281743/zack-hayes

There's a report that Rafael Harvey-Pinard suffered a lower-body injury to the same leg as last season playing in a game with some of his former Rocket teammates. https://www.toutsurlehockey.com/canadiens-montreal/exclusif-rafael-harvey-pinard-sera-t-il-pret-pour-le-camp-du-ch/

1 x $975K for Daniel Sprong in Vancouver. That's one of the top bargains in free agency.

That release also gave SKA exclusive KHL rights to him for a couple more years as well, I believe. So it wasn't even a full release, just enough of one to get him to the NHL.

NYI could very easily miss as well, they're not that good.

For fun, here are my top 25 from that year: 1) Caufield 2) Suzuki 3) Poehling 4) Romanov 5) Primeau 6) Brook 7) Fleury 8- Ylonen 9) Juulsen 10) Evans 11) Harris 12) Struble 13) Norlinder 14) Olofsson 15) Ikonen 16) Teasdale 17) Leskinen 18) Fairbrother 19) Hillis 20) McShane 21) Fonstad 22) LeGuerrier 23) Stapley 24) McNiven 25) Vejdemo (Harvey-Pinard was at 31 having just been drafted in his third year of eligibility.) https://www.habsworld.net/2020/04/2019-20-habsworld-prospect-rankings-1-5/ https://www.habsworld.net/2020/04/2019-20-habsworld-prospect-rankings-6-10/ https://www.habsworld.net/2020/03/2019-20-habsworld-prospect-rankings-11-15/ https://www.habsworld.net/2020/01/2019-20-habsworld-prospect-rankings-16-20/ https://www.habsworld.net/2019/12/2019-20-habsworld-prospect-rankings-21-25/

He doesn't have a deal in Sweden but there is a European Assignment Clause in the contract so a loan somewhere is a possibility, though not the likely outcome.

The fit was logical but I'm surprised he accepted an AHL job when he had a year still left on his deal with Columbus. (I'm sure Columbus isn't getting big savings on the offset.) I thought he'd wait out the year and try to land an assistant job in the NHL. This is an interesting hire. Lots of experience but I believe Jets and Blue Jackets fans really didn't like him. He's not known for playing the youngsters but in Laval, he won't have much of a choice with how many youngsters they have.

And he's not skating with them at the moment due to injury.

It seems like Kane's a safe bet to land on LTIR. How long he'll be on there for is in some question. There's some speculation that Ceci could move at some point, freeing up the flexibility to sign Broberg and make it a bit easier to work Holloway in as well.

It seems like their focus is getting the various bells and whistles that CapFriendly had up and running. For lots of people, those are the tools they want to play with. But they'll also have to establish some connections with teams and agents to get some of the nitty gritty details that helped make CapFriendly the go-to place. They have some time to get it set up so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I find myself using the three different options out there trying to piece together most of the stuff I could get on CF before.

One thing I've noticed with them is that the recent contracts aren't the most accurate. (Wrong AHL salary, missing performance bonuses, etc.) That means they're pulling contract info from elsewhere and not updating it as new info comes in. That will need to get sorted out before they can become reliable in terms of cap tracking.

Here's the article to the Slovak article (which suggests Mesar, the CGY/FLA 1st, and a young D): https://hokejkaweb.sk/opusti-filip-mesar-montreal-canadiens-ponukaju-slovenskeho-utocnika/ It's citing overseas reports which in this case would be North America. I haven't seen anything credible from a North American outlet reporting anything like that. In the article, it also suggests that Mesar turned down Montreal's invitation to development camp. Not sure he was actually invited as they told their international prospects to focus on training so keep that in mind when considering the possible credibility. This reads like a bit of a hit piece more than anything else.