Josh Anderson had two goals, an assist and the block that mattered with under a minute left on Saturday, and Montreal needed every bit of it to beat Pittsburgh 5-4 at Centre Bell. He's doing this without Nick Suzuki, without Mike Matheson, without his own starting goalie, on an expiring $5.5 million deal, and the Canadiens still haven't locked him up. It's a front office betting its best source of leverage will stay cheap a little longer.
General manager Kent Hughes met with Anderson before the season started, and both sides have said they want an extension. Anderson has said the same. There's no mystery about what either party wants here, which makes the delay hard to defend. The holdup is Darren Ferris, Anderson's agent, whose track record is waiting his top clients out until free agency gets close. That's why Anderson doesn't have a new deal yet, and it's on Ferris if this drags into spring. The player's doing the work on the ice right now.
The work has been obvious. Montreal is missing its captain and is still winning, and the alternate captain they named last month is the reason why. Anderson's production runs hot and cold over a full season, and his underlying numbers across his time in Montreal aren't the kind you build a highlight reel around. None of that matters on a night when the team's best players are in street clothes and someone still has to be the difference. On Saturday, that someone had two goals, an assist, and a late defensive block that helped preserve the win.
RatingThe real counterargument going around Montreal has nothing to do with Anderson. A team that's outshot and bleeding chances late in games, the kind that needs a final-minute block just to survive Pittsburgh, has a structural issue, and a five-game winning streak is masking it. That worry about the roster is real, and it's reason enough to lock up the player holding the leaky dam together before he walks for nothing next summer. If anything it argues the other way: a team playing beyond its process needs its most reliable two-way veteran locked up now, before a cap-strapped July turns him into trade leverage instead of a teammate.
Five straight wins with this many regulars out is real, and Anderson can't be expected to fix the defense by himself too. His job, on the nights it's counted most this month, has been to be the Canadiens' best player. Hughes has the motive, the meeting already happened, and the player wants to stay. The only thing left to blame for a stalled extension is an agent running out a familiar waiting game, and Montreal shouldn't let that patience cost them a player who's already earned the next contract.
