Habs re-sign Laurent Dauphin
The Habs took care of another one of their pending unrestricted free agents on Monday, announcing the re-signing of Laurent Dauphin to a one-year, two-way contract for next season. The deal is identical to the one that Lukas Vejdemo received on Saturday – it pays $750,000 in the NHL, $175,000 in the AHL, and has a total guaranteed pay of $215,000. It’s a modest raise from the $200,000 guarantee he had in his deal for this season.
The 26-year-old was acquired from Nashville back in January of 2020 and while he hasn’t seen any NHL action with the Canadiens, he has been a key piece for Laval since joining the organization. Dauphin also spent some time on Montreal’s taxi squad back in March and is among the players currently with the team on their Black Aces group.
Dauphin played in 21 games with Laval this season, managing five goals and 11 assists in that stretch, numbers that were comparable to his 2019-20 performance with the Rocket. He spent most of the season in a middle-six role although he was often on the top line down the stretch when Laval was hit hard by injuries and recalls and responded with his best offensive output of the season, earning our first star for May.
Dauphin could have tested unrestricted free agency as a Group 6 free agent next month but instead will stick around to likely play a similar role as he did this season with Laval while serving as injury recall insurance as well (he does have 35 career NHL games over parts of four seasons). He will need to clear waivers to get to the Rocket next season but he has passed through successfully in the past and there’s little reason to think that won’t be the case in training camp in the fall as well.
Dauphin’s Stats: