Free washer | Send Joshua Roy back to Laval or not?

Simon-Olivier Lorange asks a pertinent question in his analysis of the Canadian’s astonishing victory in Nashville: should we keep Joshua Roy in Montreal for the sake of his development or send him back to Laval to help the farm club reach the playoffs? and thus allow this young group to benefit from the eliminatory experience?

Roy scored the tying goal Tuesday, his fifth point in his last eight games. The young man has interesting chemistry with Alex Newhook and Joel Armia within the second trio, underlines our colleague Simon-Olivier.

Sending Roy back to Laval in the near future will obviously not sabotage the boy’s career, but would we tend to overestimate the importance of the development of an organization’s elite through the playoffs in the American League?

Carey Price led the Hamilton Bulldogs to the Calder Cup in 2007. The experience may have served him well, but it took him three more seasons of ups and downs before he launched his career. Would this fifth overall pick in 2005 have failed his career without this participation in the playoffs? To ask the question, is to answer it.

Which other young people within the Bulldogs have used this journey as launching ramp ? Maxim Lapierre, Kyle Chipchura, Ryan O’Byrne and Mikhail Grabovski. Only Lapierre played more than a full year with the CH.

The Bulldogs reached the final again in 2010. The feat allowed David Desharnais to stand out and eventually occupy, against all odds, the position of number one center in Montreal. PK Subban played in only seven of nineteen playoff games that spring. Ryan White is the only other young player on this team led by Trotter, Palushaj, Saint-Denis and Desjardins to have broken through.

Let’s take the Canadian’s current lineup. Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky never played in the American League. Cole Caufield played only eight games in Laval during the regular season.

Kaiden Guhle has never played in the American League. Alex Newhook played only 18 regular season games with the Avalanche farm club. Arber

Mike Matheson has played only three career playoff games in the American League with the Florida Panthers. Jake Evans played two years in the American League, but never in the playoffs. Brendan Gallagher played 37 career games in the American League, but was recalled to Montreal before getting a chance to play in the playoffs for Hamilton. Samuel Montembeault has never played a single playoff game with the Panthers’ farm club, always excluded from the playoffs.

Only six players on the current Canadiens roster have played more than seven playoff games in the American League, but only three within the CH organization: Cayden Primeau, Jesse Ylönen, Raphaël Harvey-Pinard, Josh Anderson (15 with the Blue Jackets farm club in 2016), Jake Allen (9 with the Blues farm club in 2014) and David Savard (8 with the Blue Jackets farm club in 2013).

In Tampa, Nikita Kucherov never made the American League playoffs, nor did Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli or Andrei Vasilevskiy. Brayden Point played only… two playoff games with the Crunch.

In Colorado, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar did not go through the American League. Rantanen played one season there, but no series. No more than Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin or Devon Toews with their respective organizations.

Logan Mailloux, Justin Barron, Sean Farrell, Xavier Simoneau, Emil Heineman, Jan Mysak William Trudeau, Riley Kidney, Jared Davidson and Jakub Dobes are the players 22 or under in Laval at the moment. David Reinbacher and Adam Engström could join the group in the coming weeks.

How many will have the privilege of playing in the offensive top nine or the first defensive quartet? One, two maybe? If CH drafts an attacker in the top eight this summer, he risks bypassing all those from Laval within two years. It’s probably more open on the right side in defense for Reinbacher, Mailloux and/or Barron.

In an ideal world, the Rocket qualifies for the playoffs and wins the Calder Cup, let’s get this straight. A playoff run in the American League can only be beneficial, obviously, especially for younger players like Reinbacher and Engström, who will need to become familiar with small-surface rinks.

But let’s not tear our shirt either if the Canadian ever decides to keep Roy in Montreal, where he seems more and more to belong. In either case, the organization will not lose. Anyway, don’t the best always end up succeeding, no matter the path?

Reinbacher and Engström move closer to Laval

The arrival of CH’s first choice in 2023, fifth overall, David Reinbacher, depends on the fate of Visp and Olten in the Swiss second division playoffs. These two clubs lost their most recent match. Visp trails 3-0 against Chaux-de-Fonds and Olten 2-1 against Zurich. If they do not reach the final, Reinbacher’s club Kloten will not have to play a relegation play-off and the 19-year-old right-footed defender will be released.

The next matches will take place on Friday. Visp could be eliminated that day. If Olten loses its next two games, Reinbacher’s season will end on March 10. There will then be 15 games remaining on the schedule for the Rocket in the regular season.

As for Adam Engström, a 20-year-old left-handed defender drafted in the third round in 2022, 19 points in 48 games in Rögle, in the Swedish first division (SHL), his club lost 2-1 against Leksands on Tuesday and finds itself at one point of the last place giving access to the series, but also on an equal footing with another excluded club, Malmö. He has three matches left to play, including the last on Tuesday March 12.