Marc Bergevin had qualities when he was in charge of the Canadiens. But the contract signing was certainly not one of them. Karl Alzner, Jeff Petry, Joel Armia, Mike Hoffman, Paul Byron and, of course, Brendan Gallagher are great examples. The worst part is that some of these contracts are still hurting the Habs. And if we take Gallagher's case, it will be the case for a very long time. He is signed until the summer of 2027 at $6.5 million per season. Ouch... Faced with this financial burden, a solution seems to be more and more popular among analysts and field hockey experts. That of buying out his contract. Yesterday, Phillipe Boucher was talking about it. <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/DLCoulisses/status/1639066762439434240'> </a></blockquote></div> <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/TVASports/status/1639035964025651202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1639035964025651202%7Ctwgr%5E4bb6c38744b1b824f81a8c7ee1750e2415245465%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.danslescoulisses.com%2Fbrendan-gallagher-philippe-boucher-propose-un-rachat-de-contrat-par-respect%2F'> </a></blockquote></div> <a href='https://bpmsports.ca/edito-de-jean-charles-un-rachat-de-contrat-pour-brendan-gallagher/' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Today, it was Jean-Charles Lajoie's turn to do so, on BPM Sports. </a> The problem with Gallagher's contract is really the duration. If he was signed for the next 2 seasons only, it wouldn't be as bad. As it is, what happens is that when Kent Hughes wants to sign Juraj Slafkovsky, Kaiden Guhle and Kirby Dach (in addition to Cole Caufield this summer), the room for maneuvering is going to be extremely thin. A contract buyout is far from a quick fix, though. Yes, it would save money in the first few years, but it would also cut nearly $2.3 million per year from the salary cap from 2027 to 2031, when Gallagher's contract would simply be up if he isn't bought out. Here are the details provided by CapFriendly. <div align='center' style='padding-top:20px;padding-bottom:20px;'><img src='https://i.marqueur.com/habsetlnh/i/photo/247847.webp' width='100%' border='0' alt='image' loading='lazy' defer /></div> And it must be said that Gallagher is not useless to the Canadiens. Is he worth $6.5 million? Of course not. But he brings energy, work ethic and a great example to the youngsters in the organization. He will probably never score 25 goals a season again, he will probably never play more than 70 games a season again, but he brings something else. Kent Hughes will have to ask himself if it's worth keeping him, even if he's not worth his salary, or if the team is just better off taking the penalty and moving on. One thing is for sure, there will be disgruntled people either way.