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2018 Rocket/ECHL Team TBD Offseason Thread


dlbalr

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Here's an overview of how Laval's roster looks so far - we'll use this thread for any roster (or affiliation) news.

 

Confirmed Newcomers

 

RW Morgan Adams-Moisan (Drummondville, QMJHL)

LW Kenny Agostino (Providence, AHL)

C Alexandre Alain (Blainville-Boisbriand, QMJHL)

RW Alex Belzile (San Antonio, AHL)

C Michael Chaput (Utica, AHL)

D Ryan Culkin (Fort Wayne, ECHL)

C Jake Evans (Notre Dame, NCAA)

RW Alexandre Grenier (Springfield, AHL)

RW Nikita Jevpalovs (Dinamo Riga, KHL)

D Brett Kulak (Calgary, NHL)

D Maxim Lamarche (Lehigh Valley, AHL)

C Phelix Martineau (Cape Breton, QMJHL)

G Etienne Marcoux (Indy, ECHL)

D T.J. Melancon (Norfolk, ECHL)

D Michal Moravcik (Plzen, Czech Extraliga)

D Gustav Olofsson (Minnesota, NHL)

C Michael Pezzetta (Sudbury, OHL)

LW Hunter Shinkaruk (Stockton, AHL)

D David Sklenicka (Plzen, Czech Extraliga)

C Lukas Vejdemo (Djurgardens, SHL)

C Hayden Verbeek (Sudbury, OHL)

 

(C Jesperi Kotkaniemi is signed and eligible to play in Laval but he could also go back to Finland.)

 

Confirmed Departures

LW Jordan Boucher (Orebro, SHL)

D Simon Bourque (Winnipeg)

C Adam Cracknell (Toronto)

C Thomas Ebbing (Fort Wayne, ECHL)

C Markus Eisenschmid (Mannheim, DEL)

G Zach Fucale (Vegas)

D Eric Gelinas (HC Slovan Bratislava, KHL)

RW Jeremy Gregoire (Milwaukee, AHL)

D Stefan LeBlanc (Toronto, AHL)

D Tom Parisi (Cardiff, EIHL)

C Niki Petti (Mora, SHL)

LW Kerby Rychel (trade with Calgary)

RW Nikita Scherbak* (will be on Montreal's roster full-time)

D Matt Taormina (trade with Calgary)

LW Chris Terry (Detroit)

D Rinat Valiev (trade with Calgary)

LW Yannick Veilleux (Rochester, AHL)

 

AHL Free Agents

LW David Broll

 

(This excludes players that finished last year on ATOs...and there were a lot of them)

 

Question Marks

D Simon Despres(V) (on a PTO with Montreal, would he accept a minor league deal?)

D Cale Fleury (eligible to turn pro but could still play in the WHL)

D Noah Juulsen (full-time in Montreal?)

 

(Given the uncertainty, these players are not included in the lines below.)

 

Projected Lineup

Agostino*(V-) - Chaput*(V) - Grenier(V)

Shinkaruk*(V-) - Froese(V)* - Audette

Vejdemo(E) - Evans - McCarron*

Addison - Alain - Jevpalovs

 

Reserves: Belzile, Waked

ECHL: Adams-Moisan, Martineau, Pezzetta, Verbeek

 

Kulak* - Lernout*

Olofsson* - Melancon

Moravcik(E) - Sklenicka(E)

 

Reserve: Culkin, Lamarche

ECHL: Plant

 

Lindgren

McNiven

 

ECHL: Marcoux

 

Notes

(*) - Must clear waivers to get to the minors

(E) - European Assignment Clause

(V) - Veteran, minimum 320 pro GP (AHL, NHL, European Pro) as of the end of 2017-18 [Max of 5 skaters in this category can dress per game]
(V-) - Veteran, between 260-319 pro GP [An additional 1 skater in this category can be classed as a development player; more than 1 can play if the max veterans aren't dressed]

 

Qualifying leagues towards the veteran GP calculation: NHL, AHL, NLA, Czech Extraliga, Slovak Extraliga, KHL, SHL, SM-liiga, and DEL.  Only regular season games count towards the calculation.

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6 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

Are the Beast no longer affiliated with the Habs/Rocket?

 

They haven't announced their affiliate yet.  Given how bad Montreal has been to them and how Ottawa wound up stocking them way more than the Habs did, I expect Brampton will name Ottawa as their affiliate and make the Habs look elsewhere.

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I guess Belleville let it slip that they are affiliated with Brampton.

 

Rapid City, Fort Wayne, Orlando, and Greenville are all currently without an affiliate. I would love to see the Solar Bears be the affiliate. Fort Wayne is one of the oldest ECHL teams, so I could see that being an appeal. Nothing close to Laval or Montreal unless they get an expansion team.

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1 hour ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

I guess Belleville let it slip that they are affiliated with Brampton.

 

Rapid City, Fort Wayne, Orlando, and Greenville are all currently without an affiliate. I would love to see the Solar Bears be the affiliate. Fort Wayne is one of the oldest ECHL teams, so I could see that being an appeal. Nothing close to Laval or Montreal unless they get an expansion team.

 

Closeness is less a consideration with echl than it is with ahl.

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19 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

Closeness is less a consideration with echl than it is with ahl.

 

No doubt, but it seems to be important to some teams. Ottawa will now have all three teams in a close proximity, same with Chicago, Detroit, and Philly.

 

I'm good with taking the Solar Bears from the Leafs, even if the DeVos family owned it.

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10 hours ago, Habopotamus said:

Burrows signs on as assistant coach in Laval. 

 

Expect the unexpected.

 

I'm not against an assistant coach position in the AHL. I still believe players should work their way up from the bottom so they learn and make mistakes in the junior leagues before they touch the AHL, but I have more confidence in this with Bouchard as coach than Lefebvre.

 

The reason why we never saw Doug Gilmour as a coach in Toronto is because he tried coaching the Frontenacs and realized he had absolutely zero coaching ability. You never want to be Gretzky in Phoenix or Richard in the WHA finding that out the hard way.

 

EDIT: Good article about Burrows, flowery and a bit worshippy, but it has players discussing how Burrows had an IQ for the game which usually makes the most sense for players transitioning to coach https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/veteran-nhl-forward-burrows-retires-after-13-seasons

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It's a good hire, emblematic of what the Habs must do, i.e., vacuum up and groom as many promising French-speaking coaching talents as possible. I heard Marc Crawford on Vancouver radio, before this hiring was announced, predicting that Burrows would make an excellent coach. Good move by the organization.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

After failing to land an NHL coaching job this summer (which should come as a surprise to precisely no one that has been paying attention these last few years despite some in the local media saying he was up for multiple posts), Sylvain Lefebvre has accepted an assistant coach position with San Diego of the AHL.

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2 hours ago, dlbalr said:

After failing to land an NHL coaching job this summer (which should come as a surprise to precisely no one that has been paying attention these last few years despite some in the local media saying he was up for multiple posts), Sylvain Lefebvre has accepted an assistant coach position with San Diego of the AHL.

I hope he does well. He was out of his depth with the Bulldogs/Icecaps/Rocket; but he soldiered-on. He makes me think of Cunneyworth

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9 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

I hope he does well. He was out of his depth with the Bulldogs/Icecaps/Rocket; but he soldiered-on. He makes me think of Cunneyworth

Soldiered on???  The guy is a useless incompetent bum!! The only reason he got a job to begin with is that he grew up with MB.  The guy should never have been hired and than should have been fired in his second year?? Soldiered on?  He made good money in contributing to the crap development of the kids we had.  Good riddance and I hope the bum gets fired faster in his next job!  

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14 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

I hope he does well. He was out of his depth with the Bulldogs/Icecaps/Rocket; but he soldiered-on. He makes me think of Cunneyworth

 

Cunneyworth's lone season in Hamilton was quite the good one - he always has been a good AHL coach.  It's unfortunate that the mess he took on with the Habs (including getting thrown under the bus about the same time he was hired) has tainted what had been a pretty good coaching career to that point.

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4 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Soldiered on???  The guy is a useless incompetent bum!! The only reason he got a job to begin with is that he grew up with MB.  The guy should never have been hired and than should have been fired in his second year?? Soldiered on?  He made good money in contributing to the crap development of the kids we had.  Good riddance and I hope the bum gets fired faster in his next job!  

 

He had a reasonable coaching resume to that point - two years as an AHL assistant and then the next three in Colorado as an assistant.  The logical next step for him was as an AHL head coach.  There was a good non-buddy argument to be made to hire Lefebvre.  (Unfortunately, things didn't go well and they held onto him way too long.)

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On 8/19/2018 at 3:24 PM, dlbalr said:

Tom Parisi has found a new home as he signed with Cardiff of the EIHL (United Kingdom).

 

And that didn't last long - he retired today. http://www.cardiffdevils.com/news/tom-parisi-quits-devils-playing-game/

 

Eric Gelinas won't be back either as he has signed with Bratislava of the KHL.

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It came out last night that Brampton (ECHL) will be the affiliate for Ottawa instead of Montreal.  Considering that the Habs put in zero effort at all to stock that team or prop it up with a bit of financial support, that's not a big surprise.

 

In Joel Bouchard's press conference today, he acknowledged that the Habs are hoping to send some players to Maine, the Rangers' ECHL team (that happens to have Daniel Briere as GM).  They may have to come up with similar arrangements with other teams if they have quite a few players that they have to send down.  (Actual depth - wouldn't that be something...)

 

I think there's an arena being built in Trois-Rivieres in the near future.  I can't help but wonder if the Habs are eyeing that as their affiliate down the road and are just going to go with temporary options between now and then.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Laval's training camp roster is out: https://www.rocketlaval.com/en/22-players-to-attend-the-laval-rocket-training-camp/

 

A couple of new names are there - winger Marc-Olivier Roy who has bounced around the minors in recent years but was decent in the QMJHL a few years back and first-year pro d-man Garrett Cecere, a 5'8 blueliner that's under contract to Maine of the ECHL, a team that the Habs are expected to use as an affiliate this season.

 

Obviously, most of their better players are still up with the big club for now so quite a few of these players won't be in the lineup when the season gets underway.

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