HabsWorld.net --
Montreal’s list of restricted free agents continues to be cut down as on Wednesday, they re-signed centre Jacob de la Rose to a one year, $725,000 deal.
In terms of his NHL play, 2016-17 wasn’t a great one for the 22 year old as he played just nine games with the Habs, the fewest of his three professional seasons. He also didn’t get off to the greatest of starts with St. John’s but picked up down the stretch, tallying nine goals and four assists from March through to the end of the year. That represented the first real stretch of offensive consistency for de la Rose at the minor league level (as usually he was recalled as soon as he got on a hot streak). All in all, he finished with 31 points in 62 games.
Like Charles Hudon, de la Rose will have to go through waivers next season and given how he fared early on in his pro career at the NHL level, it’s hard to imagine that he’d make it through unclaimed. As a result, it’s a fairly safe bet that he’ll be with the big club to start the year and the only question will be what role he has – a fourth line one (centre or the left wing) or a healthy scratch when everyone is healthy.
Assuming both de la Rose and Hudon are on the NHL roster (as well as offseason acquisition Jakub Jerabek), Montreal has about $18.5 million to work with and three players to sign. However, those that are earmarked for those contracts (RFA Alex Galchenyuk and UFAs Alexander Radulov and Andrei Markov or their replacements) will eat the majority of that when their deals get done.
de la Rose’s Stats: