Plekanec Puts Pen to Paper

The Montreal Canadiens have answered one of their biggest questions going into the off-season, what the fate of Tomas Plekanec will be. Plekanec was re-signed by the club on Tuesday afternoon to a huge deal, six years, $30 million. Plekanec was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in less than two weeks, but with the deal that sent Jaroslav Halak out of town and the initial word that the salary cap number could be going up by upwards of 5%, the deal seemed to be much easier to do for the Canadiens.

Plekanec had a breakout season with the Habs in 2010, leading the team in scoring with 70 points (25 goals and 45 assists) in 80 games with the club.  That placed Plekanec 40th in pool scoring among all NHL players and 27th among all forwards. That is a pretty solid year, which could be tough to top in 2011, but he does come across as naturally skilled enough to be the top guy again, unless Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta and Mike Cammalleri can all produce like we all know they can. If that's the case, the Canadiens could be much better suited for a more prosperous season.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Tomas Plekanec	Andrei Markov
Scott Gomez	Roman Hamrlik
Mike Cammalleri	Jaroslav Spacek
Brian Gionta	Hal Gill
Andrei Kostitsyn	Josh Gorges
Travis Moen	Ryan O'Byrne
	P.K. Subban

The growing understanding is that the salary cap ceiling number is going up to around $59 million, possibly a touch more, for the 2011 season, so this is something we can measure ourselves up to here today. With Plekanec signed on with a $5 million cap hit, the Canadiens now find themselves with 13 players signed on for $48.4 million. This should give them just over $11 million for 10 players, including both goalie spots and a number of depth forwards. Sounds fairly reasonable to me.

Not much question that the Canadiens have a lot of faith in Plekanec to be a top end player for the long-term, which is the way things seem to go nowadays, be it right or wrong. I don't mind the idea of Plekanec being a 70-point player again for the 2011 season, but I, personally, am not going to bank on it. I think I will bring him down a few pegs, just to make him into a bargain, if anything, if I am to get him a little later on in my draft. He's an alright player, but to me, he hasn't proved enough to make him a top end pick.