HabsWorld.net --
We’re a little less than a week from the qualifying offer deadline, at which point the Habs need to make decisions on several players, including Kirby Dach. Unfortunately for the team, there aren’t really any good options for the 25-year-old.
Dach played in 37 games this season, continuing a trend of being unavailable more than he was actually available. Over the life of his four-year deal, he missed more games (174) than he played during the regular season (154). He had eight goals and seven assists in 2025-26 and 77 points in his 154 games with the Habs. He added four goals and an assist in 19 playoff contests with some wildly inconsistent play along the way. Suffice it to say, he didn’t exactly have an ideal platform year.
As a quick refresher, Dach’s soon-to-expire contract was a bit backloaded with a salary of $4 million this past season. That number then represents his qualifying offer, which would already be a notable raise from the $3.3625 million AAV of his current deal. On top of that, Dach would also qualify for salary arbitration, providing the risk of a third party awarding a raise in addition to that. While that’s not ideal, frankly, the alternatives aren’t much better. Let’s take a look at them.
Option 1: Trade
If management decides that they’re ready to move on, that would be an understandable conclusion. While Dach has had his flashes with Montreal, he has also struggled keeping up with the Habs’ style of play, either as a centre or a winger. If you were looking at the Canadiens from the outside, you’d probably conclude that he’s someone who could probably benefit from a change of scenery.
The problem is that change-of-scenery players don’t typically come with a $4 million price tag thanks to his qualifying offer. With that in mind, how much value would Dach have on the trade front? It probably wouldn’t be all that high, especially in terms of futures. Instead, it’s likely that the other team would be asking the Habs to take back an underachiever of their own to help balance out the money.
It’d be one thing if the underachiever was someone the Habs could use or flip elsewhere. Otherwise, they’d be stuck taking back someone they didn’t want just to get a trade return for Dach. In that scenario, the next option might be the better one. I’d be happy to be proven wrong and see a trade for value but I’m not holding my breath.
Option 2: Non-Tender
If the Habs don’t like what they see on the trade market, it’s a question of is something better than nothing? Not necessarily. Instead of taking a bad contract or an underachiever back for the sake of getting something back, they could just opt to non-tender him and let him walk for free. While that’s a brutal outcome considering what they gave up to get him, compounding the problem with another bad fit is a poorer result than using that cap space to afford a free agent or trade acquisition who better fits the roster.
It’s worth mentioning here that a non-tender doesn’t automatically mean Dach would be gone either. They wouldn’t be bound by the qualifying offer and Dach could test the open market on July 1st but there’s nothing stopping them from still talking between the tender deadline on June 29th and then working out a deal before free agency. As odd as it might seem, it happens several times a year from teams looking to get around the arbitration issue.
While that could seem palatable, it could easily backfire too. If Montreal wants to avoid arbitration, this is a way to do it but there’s nothing stopping Dach’s camp from turning around and deciding to test the open market. A 25-year-old change-of-scenery centre tied to no trade return or qualifying offer would generate a fair bit of interest in free agency as it becomes a low-risk proposition. If the Canadiens genuinely want to give Dach another chance, this is the riskiest way to do so.
Option 3: Give Him The Qualifier
If the trade market isn’t great or management has some uncertainty about how their offseason planning is going to go, they can play it safe and issue the qualifying offer. That makes the minimum offer $4 million. Even if Dach files for arbitration; the arbitrator can’t award less than that and if it ultimately went to a hearing, he’d be capped at a one-year deal that walks him right to UFA eligibility next summer.
Arbitration hearings don’t start until July 20th and teams can request to have a hearing moved up or back on the docket within the two-week window. By then, Kent Hughes will have a better idea of what the roster and cap situation looks like and can navigate from there toward trying to trade him or re-signing him.
If you know some of the CBA subtleties, you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned team-elected arbitration yet. There are two windows, one of which has already passed. Had Montreal filed for a hearing in the first window (which expired mid-week), they could have offered 85% of Dach’s salary this season, or $3.4 million. That option is gone now. Now, club-elected arbitration is merely ensuring that a contract is done by training camp but if Dach didn’t file and the Habs did, they wouldn’t get walkaway rights if the award came in over $4,950,080. There’s no value in the team taking him to a hearing now.
It should be noted that a qualifying offer doesn’t guarantee an arbitration filing. Dach’s camp doesn’t have to do so. But it’s a leverage card that they can play so if management tenders him the offer, expect him to file for a hearing.
Option 4: Work Out A Multi-Year Deal
This is the other option to potentially get around the $4 million qualifier. The two sides could plausibly work out a two-year deal at or around the AAV he played on the last four years. Dach foregoes a bit of money next season in exchange for a bigger overall guarantee in the hopes that maybe things will go better and maybe, just maybe, he’ll stay healthy for a full season. If that happened, he’d position himself for a better contract down the road.
My guess is that this is Montreal’s lesser-of-all-evils preferred option here. Yes, things haven’t gone well but I don’t think they’re ready to give up on him yet and I don’t think they want to give him what would likely become more than $4 million for next season with an arbitration award. This is the workaround but you also run the risk of more extended stints on injured reserve and some of the salary cap challenges associated with that. The Habs are likely to be tight to the Upper Limit again next season with a fair bit of bonus exposure once again with Ivan Demidov, Jacob Fowler, and Oliver Kapanen (plus potentially David Reinbacher) all still on their rookie deals.
In essence, Montreal’s options with Dach aren’t great. They can trade him for a middling return at best, run the risk of letting him walk for free, run the risk of an arbitration-awarded raise off a high qualifying offer, or run the risk of another multi-year agreement where injury history could repeat itself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this four years ago when Dach was acquired but here we are, facing a path of no good solutions. We’ll find out soon enough which path they take.
