Rocket de Laval | Pascal Vincent’s priority

Is the relationship between an NHL team and its farm club one of symbiosis, mutualism or commensalism?

This is a question that would fill a natural science symposium. That said, there is no single answer; each organization, each coach, acts according to his or her own conception.

Pascal Vincent’s is clear. It was wearing a jersey with the Canadiens logo that the new head coach of the Laval Rocket showed up in Brossard on Wednesday for his first in-person meeting with the Montreal media.

“I’m wearing the sweater for the first time and it’s a childhood dream. I haven’t looked in the mirror yet, but I’m really proud,” Vincent said.

His choice of jersey was appropriate, given how he views his role as head coach of the farm club. The players he will coach starting next month will certainly wear a blue and white “R” on their chest, but Vincent believes his role is to serve the interests of the team with the blue, white and red “CH” jersey.

“The Rocket’s goal is to help the Montreal Canadiens,” Vincent insisted on this first day of rookie camp. “Our goal is to develop players in a positive environment where it’s nice to come to the arena. We want a competitive environment. We want to win. But the role of the American League, having done it in the past, is to help our young players to give them a chance to be promoted to the National League.”

We could almost speak of a form of parasitism – the farm club which sacrifices itself for the interests of the big club – fully assumed.

A still young school club

It’s a good thing Vincent thinks that way, because he won’t necessarily have the resources of a club that aspires to the Calder Cup, even if the Rocket won’t be as young as last year.

Last year, 12 rookies wore the Rocket’s colors, including 7 in the opening game. This group included the two goalies from the start of the season, Jakub Dobes and Strauss Mann. Unsurprisingly, and as former head coach Jean-François Houle had predicted at camp, this club stumbled right from the start: after 20 games, it had a record of 5-11-4. Needless to say, the carrots were already cooked.

In all likelihood, Laval will enter this season with a half-dozen rookies. Names like Owen Beck, Luke Tuch, Filip Mesar, Florian Xhekaj, David Reinbacher and Adam Engström should fill out that roster. This list is not final; players could cause surprises at camp, while Xhekaj could return to junior for a final year.

But no matter, this group will be more experienced than last year’s, especially since Reinbacher and Engström are arriving after two years each in very good European professional leagues. They are rookies with an asterisk.

The veterans will include Brandon Gignac, Laurent Dauphin and, if he doesn’t start the season in Montreal, Alex Barré-Boulet. There will therefore be room for the youngsters, and Vincent intends to give them missions.

“When the match starts, our goal will be to win. But there is a price to pay,” warned the coach. The decisions you make in the National League, you make them to win that game. You may not make the same decision in the American League.”

“If we’re up 2-1 and there’s a defensive zone faceoff, in the NHL, you’re going to send your veteran. You know he’s going to win the faceoff and put you in a better position to win. In the American League, you’re probably going to send the young guy who needs that experience. That play might cost us the game, but the organization is going to grow. So it’s a little bit of a different approach.”

The value of collective success in the American League must also be put into perspective. The Lightning’s farm club, which won in 2012 with members of its future core such as Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat, serves as a model. But for the Canadiens, the last long run of its farm club (semi-final in 2022) did not necessarily produce a windfall of players for the big club. Only Cayden Primeau and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard were able to establish themselves in the NHL, both in secondary roles.

The fact remains that under Houle, the farm club has produced a few players who have given a boost “at the top”, and who still have time to grow; Primeau, Joshua Roy and Jayden Struble are the most recent examples. It is much more on this record than on the number of championship banners on the ceiling of Place Bell that Vincent will be evaluated.

The return home

The last time Daniel Jacob was behind the Rocket bench, the team was playing at the Bell Centre, in front of empty stands, in the Canadian Division, in a season without a playoff tournament. His head coach was Joël Bouchard and the Canadiens’ GM was Marc Bergevin. Here he is back in his role as assistant in Laval, this time to Pascal Vincent, under the leadership of Kent Hughes, in a world that has returned a little more to normal. “When I came back for development camp, what I felt was a marked enthusiasm, a [optimisme] which was refreshing, I thought it was cool. And there were a lot of familiar faces. I was coming home, but I felt like it was different,” Jacob said at a press conference Wednesday in Brossard. Jacob explained that his decision to end his 10-year association with Bouchard and leave the Syracuse Crunch was essentially a family decision. “I loved my year in Syracuse, but I was sitting on a three-legged chair, the fourth being my family. My wife and my boyfriend weren’t going to follow me for a second year in a row. I had the chance to come back to Laval. It would have been disrespectful to my family not to try.” Jacob said he will once again take care of the defensemen and the penalty kill.