Hughes: Rising Habs won't act like 'drunken sailors' in free agency

Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes is pleased with the strides his club has made this season, but he said he won't recklessly hand out huge deals this summer to accelerate the team's rebuild.

"We're not going to go into free agency like a bunch of drunken sailors and get stuck with eight-year deals that we wish we could get out of the minute we get into them," Hughes told Sportsnet's Eric Engels on Sunday. "But I think we're probably closer to overpaying in terms of what we give up in assets to acquire a player."

The Canadiens are projected to have approximately $11.5 million in cap space this offseason, according to PuckPedia, and they don't have any big-ticket contracts to take care of in-house. Hughes believes the club is entering its timeline to contend after missing out on the playoffs the past three seasons.

"We'd be remiss if we missed the window while we have an elite two-way centerman like Nick Suzuki driving our team," Hughes said.

Suzuki, 25, leads the Habs with 69 points in 66 games this season and is under contract at a reasonable $7.875-million cap hit through the 2029-30 season. Fellow core forwards Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky are also locked up long term, and Montreal has built one of the league's deepest prospect pipelines to supplement its chances of becoming a threat in the Eastern Conference.

The Canadiens are one of the NHL's hottest teams, posting a 7-1-2 record since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off break. Montreal enters Tuesday's tilt with the Ottawa Senators one point out of a playoff spot with two games in hand on the New York Rangers.