With Matheson signing, Canadiens edge closer to cracking open contention window

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens are prepared to jump out of their rebuilding phase and right onto the sill of their contention window.

If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have given Mike Matheson a five-year, $30 million contract on Friday.

It will only begin months after Matheson turns 32, and if he didn’t believe in the direction in which the Canadiens were trending, he’d have never signed it. There was no way Matheson would’ve shirked his first-ever opportunity to test free agency — especially with so much scarcity in the marketplace and player salaries set to skyrocket as the salary cap vaults higher and higher and higher over at least the next three years.

The open market was summoning the left-handed defenceman. It was all but promising him much more than the $30 million he signed for. It would’ve been virtually barren of another player of Matheson’s profile — a 10-year veteran whose skating stride propels him well ahead of the aging curve and whose lungs currently enable him to the 10th-most minutes per game in the NHL — and that would’ve played well into his hands.

So would’ve Matheson’s professionalism. He displayed it in embracing a uniquely defensive role following a career-high 64-point season and years of being primarily counted on for his offence, and that wouldn’t have been discounted by anyone.

Any interested party would’ve also taken into consideration that Matheson’s transition to the role came at a time when he wasn’t nearly as insulated.

For stretches of last season, that defensive role proved understandably difficult for the Pointe-Claire, Que., native.

But now that Matheson has the cushion of a more experienced defence corps beneath him and the padding Noah Dobson provides beside him, he’s not only thriving in that role — he’s playing the best he ever has.

The Canadiens were ready to commit to Matheson well before. They initially engaged him in negotiations at the NHL combine in June, near his summer home in Buffalo, and then they re-engaged in the fall. And there was no way, as the Canadiens were watching Matheson play in the lead-up to snow hitting the streets of Montreal, that they were thinking it would be easier for them to get to where they want to go without him.

If the Canadiens get there much faster now, it’ll have as much to do with what Matheson’s doing on the ice as with what he did off it Friday. He has four goals, 14 points and a team-leading plus-13 despite playing the hardest minutes of anyone on the team through 22 games. He gets virtually no power-play time, he’s often depended on to play the entirety of a two-minute penalty kill, and the bulk of his five-on-five ice-time is spent against the best players in the world.

Despite the talent both Dobson and Lane Hutson possess, neither of them can fill that role as well. And it would be anything but beneficial to the Canadiens if they were to ask either of them to assume it going forward.

Over time, both players will take on a bit more of the burden Matheson currently carries — as he ages and they come of age. And over time, Matheson’s $6 million hit will still look like a steal as his role slightly diminishes while the cap simultaneously balloons.

Would the Canadiens have preferred a four-year deal? Probably.

But they could accept going as long as they did with Matheson conceding on his annual average salary.

On top of the extra year, he got close to $21 million of his $30 million in signing bonuses spread throughout the length of the contract. And for giving him that extra year and the bonuses, the Canadiens were able to gain a bit more trade flexibility on the back end of the deal.

Sources confirmed Matheson has a full no-move clause from the start of the deal through its third year, but it goes to a 14-team no-trade clause in Year 4, and then a five-team no-trade clause in Year 5 (with him only making $1 million in actual salary once his $3.5 million signing bonus is paid in July 2031).

But beyond the money, the symbolism of this union is most noteworthy. It tells the hockey world the Canadiens are just about ready to crack their window wide open.

Matheson’s belief, much like Dobson’s and Hutson’s before, also sends a message to players around the league that the Canadiens are a desirable team, and that Montreal is a place they should want to call home. Their concessions, as well as those made by virtually every other core member of the team, amplify that message.

Those concessions also empowered the Canadiens to swing big at a time when they’ll need to. With picks and prospects already stockpiled, and with more future cap space now banked, filling the remaining holes on their roster becomes more readily achievable. It’s a position the Canadiens only could’ve hoped to have been in when they embarked on this rebuild nearly four years ago.

It could’ve gone very differently to this point. And if it had, this deal never would’ve gotten done now.

It speaks to the linear progress of the Canadiens, who are now officially approaching their most pivotal steps towards perennial contention.

More from Sportsnet

Canadiens sign Mike Matheson to five-year, $30M contract extension

Canadiens make no-risk, no-brainer move for Texier