{"id":410736,"date":"2026-01-15T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410736\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T10:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:55:10","slug":"new-contract-represents-high-upside-for-alexandre-texier-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410736\/","title":{"rendered":"New contract represents high upside for Alexandre Texier, Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 If the upside wasn\u2019t obvious enough to Alexandre Texier<\/a>, he wouldn\u2019t have signed the $5-million contract he was offered by the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

But Texier surely realized \u2014 whether it was while he was toiling in misery in St. Louis, or right after he put an end to that situation in November by ripping up the remainder of his $2.1-million deal with the Blues to sign a prorated, $1-million contract to play the rest of this season with the Canadiens \u2014 that it\u2019s best to capitalize on your success while you\u2019re enjoying it.<\/p>\n

If Texier\u2019s previous experience hadn\u2019t made him leery of how fleeting success can be, his agent would\u2019ve reminded him as soon as Montreal\u2019s offer to stay with them for two seasons beyond this one came across the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t see a reason to wait,\u201d Dan Milstein told Sportsnet shortly after announcing his client\u2019s new pact with the Canadiens on social media.\u00a0 \u201cHe loves playing in Montreal, and it hasn\u2019t even been 60 days since the whole contract termination, waivers situation in St. Louis, so there was no reason to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens could\u2019ve taken their time before signing the 26-year-old, and it\u2019s arguable they should\u2019ve.<\/p>\n

Texier\u2019s sample with them is just 25 games, which is very short when compared to his 240-game sample with other teams. And that 240-game sample with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Blues, which was anything but as convincing as the one with the Canadiens, would\u2019ve been enough to give the Canadiens pause on committing to him.<\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t, not knowing for sure if the bulk of the seven goals and 16 points Texier has produced with the Canadiens were fueled not only by his opportunity to play the last 10 games with top-liners Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, but also by the need to prove himself would\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

But Canadiens president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes knew waiting to sign Texier would\u2019ve likely proven costlier, and they\u2019d clearly seen enough from him to move forward with what they deemed to be the lesser of two risks.<\/p>\n

Gorton and Hughes have seen that Texier\u2019s skill and versatility have made him fit with the Canadiens from Game 1 through Game 25 in a way he never quite did with the Blue Jackets or Blues through the first 6.5 years of his career. They\u2019ve seen that he\u2019s fit in as well in their bottom six as he has on their top line. They have to like that he\u2019s played effectively on the power play and even filled in admirably on the penalty kill, and they have to love that he wouldn\u2019t even need to register another point this season to justify the first contract they gave him.<\/p>\n

The feeling that Texier wouldn\u2019t even need to produce at the same high clip as he has so far to justify the new contract would\u2019ve only incentivized Gorton and Hughes to act now rather than wait for the player to produce plenty more en route to becoming an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent who\u2019d be one year away from unrestricted free agency this summer.<\/p>\n

Because the Canadiens acted now, they\u2019ll pay close to bottom dollar for a player who can \u2014and mostly likely will at different junctures \u2014 play well above their bottom line. With the salary cap spiking over each of the next two off-seasons, it\u2019s a bet they\u2019re poised to win after crushing the first one they made on Texier.<\/p>\n

The player is understandably thrilled about it.<\/p>\n

When Texier spoke with reporters in Washington shortly after the news broke on Wednesday, the native of Saint-Martin-d’Heres, France expressed his gratitude to the Canadiens for their faith in him, repeating several times that he knows there\u2019s a long road ahead and a lot of pushing for him to continue doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy about the next two years, and I\u2019m just going to keep playing my game,\u201d said Texier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the guys in the room, the organization, the city, it\u2019s everything,\u201d Texier continued. \u201cI\u2019m just having a good time, so I didn\u2019t hesitate for one second when (the offer) came. I\u2019ve been happy here since Day 1, so this is where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Louis clearly wasn\u2019t that place.<\/p>\n

If Texier was ever happy there (after being traded to the Blues from the Blue Jackets in June of 2024), it wasn\u2019t apparent. And he was obviously very unhappy there towards the end, as a frequent scratch through the first six weeks of the season, over which he produced just one assist and appeared in only eight games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what happened (in St. Louis) made me mentally stronger, and stronger as a hockey player,\u201d said Texier. \u201cI\u2019ve moved forward. I know it made me grow mentally, that\u2019s for sure, and I\u2019m stronger now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens hoped Texier would be when they paid close to league minimum for him to achieve the bare minimum.<\/p>\n

Texier\u2019s mandate was to outperform mostly American Hockey League competition in the bid to fill some of the void left by Canadiens players nursing long-term injuries, and he\u2019s delivered so much more to earn a commitment that\u2019ll, at the very least, keep him playing even once all the injured players return.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a commitment that\u2019ll likely keep Texier where he\u2019s happy for two more years beyond this one, and he was wise not to turn away from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 If the upside wasn\u2019t obvious enough to Alexandre Texier, he wouldn\u2019t have signed the $5-million contract…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-410736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}