Ivan Provorov’s huge contract: Mike Matheson’s value increased today

The NHL free-agent market opens tomorrow at noon… but for the past few hours, the league has been abuzz with activity.

Mitch Marner, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand have all signed new contracts, so there won’t be much left tomorrow.

There’ll be Nikolaj Ehlers, Brock Boeser… and Jonathan Drouin, of all people.

And on top of all that, another big name decided to stay with his team today: defenseman Ivan Provorov signed a seven-year deal to stay in Columbus.

At $8.5 million, it’s a shocking annual salary… but you’d think the club would have dipped into the money it wanted to give Noah Dobson to retain the services of a guy who’s doing a great job in town.

With Provorov off the market tomorrow, that leaves Vladislav Gavrikov as the only big name on the blue line to test the market. Expect a number of teams to be eyeing him… and for him to sign a monstrous contract.

That said, only one team will be able to get their hands on Gavrikov. So, if a team misses out, they’ll have to turn to the trade market for help on the blue line.

And that’s where Mike Matheson comes in.

With Provorov signing today, the Habs are gaining more and more leverage in the event they want to trade their defenseman. We know that Montreal’s blue line is getting pretty congested with the arrival of Noah Dobson, and with a year to go before the Habs become independent, trading Matheson becomes an option to consider.

Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle should be in town for a very long time, so the left side of the top-4 is set for the long term. And the more demand there is for top-4 defensemen across the league, the more the Habs have to consider this possibility.

Mike Matheson at $4.875 million for one year could help out a lot of teams that don’t like what’s available on the market. That’s assuming those teams aren’t on the list of eight teams Matheson doesn’t want to be traded to… but there may well be a way to do it.

To be continued.