Bolduc Gets Four Years. The Negotiation That Dragged All Summer Is Done.

The Canadiens re-signed Zachary Bolduc to a four-year contract on Saturday, closing out the last significant RFA question on the roster before training camp opens. I've been tracking this one since early September — the Minten extension out of Vancouver complicated the framework, and for a stretch it looked like this could bleed into camp. It didn't.

The number that made this negotiation awkward all along was Bolduc's 2026 season: 19 points and a minus-9 rating in 50 games, not a line that commands leverage. But the organization clearly looked past one difficult year and bet on the player underneath it. Four years is a real commitment for a young forward who hasn't yet found consistent footing at this level, and it says something about how Kent Hughes and the front office read his trajectory.

Where Bolduc fits in the forward group is still an open question heading into camp. The additions of Kirby Dach and Chris Kreider — both signed in the past two months — have added bodies ahead of him on the depth chart. His 13.5 minutes a night last season puts him in the bottom half of the forward rotation, and that probably doesn't change immediately. But the contract means the organization isn't asking him to prove he belongs here. That part is settled. Now he just has to play his way up the lineup.