Sep 07 Habs add Depth at Centre, Acquire Jeff Halpern

Turnabout is fair play as the Montreal Canadiens decided to go fishing in Tampa Bay’s pond for a change by concluding a 1 year deal with former Lightning centreman Jeff Halpern. 

Tampa, you will recall, have acquired former Habs player Dominic Moore, the entire Hamilton  Bulldog coaching staff as well as the Canadiens’ chief capologist and vice president since the hiring of Steve Yzerman as GM. 

The Canadiens got a “little” payback with all the money that had left under the cap. 

As is the Habs’ policy, they are not talking regarding the amount, however the Gazette’s Pat hickey has the contract in the $600,000 range, which is all the cap space the Canadiens had left after the recent announcement regarding the entente with Carey Price. 

Halpern, who scored 9 goals and 10 assists last season was glad to take the contract, admittedly anxious to have been without a job as the season was about to start and took a substantial pay cut over the 2 million he received last year.

With Scott Gomez and Tomas Plekanec holding down the first and second line centre position, it looks like Halpern will be timesharing the 3^rd or 4^th line duties with Maxim Lapierre, Dustin Boyd and Lars Eller. 

Read on for the official Habs press release.