​The Montreal Canadiens won’t have to attend an arbitration hearing this offseason; the club has announced that it has reached a one-year deal with forward Kirby Dach. After receiving a two-way contract $4 M qualifying offer, the forward had understandably filed for arbitration. The qualifying offer was expiring on July 15th, and it’s no surprise that a deal was announced on the very next day.The one-year pact carries a $3.6M cap hit, which means Dach received $200,000 more than the bare minimum the arbitrator could have awarded him. The two-way qualifying offer was a great move by GM Kent Hughes to avoid being forced to pay Dach $4M per season.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCanadiens’ Fowler Tops The RankingsThe Curious Case Of Kirby Dach – Arbitration EditionThe Answer To A Couple Of The Canadiens’ Big Issues Could Be InternalHughes has worked tirelessly on putting together a great salary structure for his team, and it’s not surprising that he did what he had to do to sign Dach to a more manageable cap hit. Not that $400,000 is a huge difference, but every little helps, as they say. The contract will walk Dach to UFA status, and next offseason, he will be free to sign with a team of his choice.While it’s possible that Dach is in the Canadiens’ lineup when the puck drops on the new season, the signing doesn’t necessarily mean that will be the case. Now that he has a contract, any trade partner will know exactly how much cap space they’d have to spend on the Albertan if they were to acquire him from the Habs.The signing leaves the Canadiens with $9,783,924 in cap space and two players still unsigned: Zachary Bolduc and Arber Xhekaj.Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains.Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens’ page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens.Join the discussion by signing up to the Canadiens’ roundtable on The Hockey News.