Will we see more players terminate their contract for better opportunities?

The Montreal Canadiens signed forward Alexandre Texier to a one-year contract on Sunday, just hours after the St. Louis Blues terminated his contract.

Texier is the latest in a series of players who have asked their teams to terminate their contracts in order to have opportunities to play elsewhere. The last player to do it before Texier was David Kampf, who after being sent down to the minors with the Toronto Maple Leafs, signed a one-year deal with the Vancouver Canucks.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the recent trend of players willing to take a pay cut to play elsewhere.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Texier continued what’s been an interesting trend in the last few years. Last season, Brandon Saad had a handful of millions left on his deal with the Blues, but he put his hand up and said he’s not playing there anymore. They terminated his deal, he gave up the money, he signed for the league minimum with the Vegas Golden Knights and played there the rest of the year.

We saw Kampf do a similar thing for the Leafs, where he said “If you’re just going to bury me in the American Hockey League, let me out of my contract and I’ll sign somewhere else for cheap.”

What do you make of this trend of guys doing that?

Carter Hutton: I guess it’s one of those things where you take the hit now and the money later. But there’s always that fact that there’s a reason why you’re not playing. I know the grass isn’t always greener, but when you look at Texier in 2020-21, in 36 games he had 11 goals and nine assists, so he can produce.

Is this an opportunity where there’s only so many seats on the table? At times you have to bet on yourself, but at times, you have to look in the mirror and say, “I am who I am.”

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…