The reason Patrik Laine wasn't activated has finally been revealed and it's a big surprise
Patrik Laine just admitted he wasn't actually injured at the end of the season, and Pierre LeBrun explained Monday why the Canadiens kept him on IR anyway.
The reason is money. Specifically, future money.
LeBrun reported there was real incentive for Laine to stay on injured reserve, because it sets him up to sign a bonus-laden UFA contract with a lower base salary.
A lower base. That's the whole trick.
Teams chasing a player coming off a $8.7 million cap hit get scared by the number. Drop the base, load up the bonuses, and suddenly Laine becomes a low-risk swing for a contender with cap room.
It's a creative workaround for a player whose value just cratered.
Kent Hughes quietly helped Laine's market by keeping him out
The numbers tell the story. Five games. Zero goals. One assist. A -3 rating.
That's the entire 2025-26 regular season for the Finnish sniper in Montreal. Five appearances and out.
Then nothing in the playoffs while Martin St-Louis pushed his group all the way to a second-round series loss against Carolina.
So what's left to sell? A 28-year-old shooter with one of the heaviest one-timers in the world and a recent medical file teams will want to scrub through.
The bonus-laden structure is the trick GMs use when the eye test and the analytics disagree. Pay him pennies up front. Pay him real money only if he scores 30 again.
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Whether anyone bites at the right price is the open question. Laine's last full healthy season feels like a long time ago, and the buyer pool for $8 million pure shooters isn't deep.
But the framework now exists. Stu Cowan reported Laine confirmed he wasn't hurt down the stretch. LeBrun confirmed why that confession didn't come earlier.
The Canadiens carried the cap. Laine gets the contract structure. Everyone walks out of this with something.
Now the league finds out what a healthy, unrestricted Patrik Laine is actually worth in 2026.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 29, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Taylor Hall | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Logan Stankoven | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Jackson Blake | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexander Nikishin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Phillip Danault | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||