Streit returns to Canadiens on 1-year deal

Veteran defenseman Mark Streit signed a one-year deal to return to the Montreal Canadiens, the team announced Tuesday.

The deal comes with a cap hit of $700,000, reports TVA Sports' Renaud Lavoie.

Streit - who concluded the 2016-17 campaign as a member of the Stanley Cup-winning Pittsburgh Penguins - began the season with the Philadelphia Flyers, where he scored five goals and added 16 assists in 49 games. He was then traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning at the deadline, and was subsequently flipped to Pittsburgh later that day.

Streit was rarely used during the Penguins' journey to the Cup, averaging just 15:03 of ice time per game in only three appearances while contributing two assists.

He last played for the Canadiens in 2007-08, scoring 25 goals and recording 109 points over a three-year span with the club that began in the 2005-06 season. He left Montreal to join the New York Islanders via free agency, and went on to post a total of 179 points over 286 games.

Now 39 years old, Streit is coming off a four-year contract that carried an annual average value of $5.25 million. His ice time has dropped in each of the past two seasons.

The signing of Streit leaves the future of long-time Canadiens defender Andrei Markov up in the air. The 38-year-old Markov remains an unrestricted free agent and is coming off a season in which he recorded 36 points in 62 games while averaging 21:50 of ice time.

According to Cap Friendly, the Canadiens have a little over $9 million in cap space remaining for the coming season.

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