The Montreal Canadiens’ rebuild is slowly but surely moving in the right direction, but like any team going through a roster change, the Habs had a lot of draft picks and, as a result, a lot of promising players.
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A team can only have so many contracts, which means decisions have to be made at some point. The Canadiens had until August 15 to sign Ty Smilanic and Rhett Pitlick.
At one point, it looked like the Canadiens had mistaken the Pitlicks for Pokémon and were trying to catch them all. After Marc Bergevin drafted Rhett in the 2019 draft, Kent Hughes acquired Tyler as part of the deal that sent Tyler Toffoli to Calgary in February 2022, and then claimed Rem on waivers less than a month later.
Fast forward to 2024 and the team has decided to cut ties with the only Pitlick they had left by not offering Rhett a contract. Rem was traded a year ago in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins (in which Montreal got Jeff Petry back) and Tyler left as a free agent in the 2022 offseason.
The youngest Pitlick isn’t the only young player Montreal is looking to leave, with Smilanic also not being offered a contract. A third-round pick of the Florida Panthers in 2020, he was traded to the Canadiens when Ben Chiarot was sent to the Sunshine State.
They are not the first and will not be the last talents who have not proven themselves with the team that drafted or signed them. Cédrick Guindon, Miguël Tourigny and Petteri Nurmi also left the organization in June.
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