It’s not just Canadiens fans who are closely following the wave of young hopefuls approaching Montreal or Laval. Within the organization itself, players with precarious status are not fooled.
At the end of June, Joël Teasdale learned that the Habs would not submit a qualifying offer to him. The news caused a relative surprise among observers… but not among the principal concerned. He thus became a free agent without compensation.
“We’re not crazy, players! “Launched Teasdale in an interview last Saturday, on the sidelines of the KR Classic, a charity event in which a few dozen players from the professional ranks took part.
“We look at the players who are coming, and the Canadiens have a lot of them coming from junior and who are going to make the leap to the Laval Rocket. We had prepared for the possibility that the Canadiens would not make me an offer, and that is what happened. »
The Quebecer was right. In 2023-2024, the Rocket, CH’s school club in the American League, will present a somewhat different face compared to last season, especially in attack. Even if he tasted the NHL at the end of the last campaign, Sean Farrell should logically end up in Laval. Emil Heineman made a strong impression on his North American debut last spring and is expected to be one of the club’s attacking engines. Joshua Roy, Riley Kidney and maybe even Filip Mesar will turn the page on their junior careers. And Xavier Simoneau, who now has a two-way NHL contract, will be in a better position than last year in the hierarchy of forwards.
Although he saw it coming, Teasdale was somewhat disappointed.
The Canadian is my childhood team, so for sure I would have liked to continue with them.
Joel Teasdale
However, his dream remains to “play in the NHL”. As such, “it was not going in the right direction” in Montreal. Which makes him say that a “new start” will “do him good, too”.
First start
Unusual fact in the career of a professional athlete: it will be, at 24, the first time that Joël Teasdale will settle far from home to live from his sport.
Apart from a break of a few months spent in Rouyn-Noranda at the end of his junior internship – he took the opportunity to win the Memorial Cup with, in particular, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard – he never left the metropolitan area to play hockey, whether on the South Shore at the bantam and midget levels, in Boisbriand in the QMJHL, if not in Laval and Montreal among the professionals.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Joël Teasdale scored 23 goals in 58 games with the Laval Rocket last season.
“At my junior draft, I wanted to go far,” he says. I was hoping to go to Cape Breton; I was not good at English, I thought that was the best way to learn it. But it didn’t work! But hey, it was the other brave new world. »
He welcomes this new reality with a smile, despite the obvious “adaptation” it will require.
Although he hasn’t signed a new contract yet, he remains hopeful of finding a two-way deal that will tie him to an NHL team. Some clubs have shown interest in him, he says.
After scoring 23 goals in 58 AHL games last season, ranked second on the Rocket, Teasdale fared well in the two games he played with the Habs late in the game. This is what he and his agent try to assert to the other teams. “I think I showed that I was capable of playing in the NHL. I didn’t look crazy… Anyway, I don’t think so! “, he launches in a burst of laughter.
He expects to find his next employer in the weeks leading up to training camps. “Every year you see a rush of signings and then the teams take a little break to assess things. We are in this phase, ”he analyzes.
With the recent appointment of Joël Bouchard as head coach of the Syracuse Crunch, a training club for the Tampa Bay Lightning, one wonders if there might not be a chance for Teasdale to join the one who led him for three years in the QMJHL, then another year in the American League.
Teasdale smiles at the thought of the idea, but quickly dismisses it. He and Bouchard see each other regularly at the Center Sports Rousseau in Boisbriand this summer, but they “avoid talking about it”, according to him.
“He’s new to the organization, so it might be frowned upon to push for someone so quickly,” Teasdale said. It would be interesting to find him, but my goal is still to sign an NHL contract. »
Joel Teasdale in a nutshell
Born March 11, 1999 in Repentigny
Played three and a half seasons with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, in the QMJHL.
Won the Memorial Cup with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in 2019.
Never drafted into the NHL, he signed a contract with the Canadiens in September 2018.
Missed the entire 2019-20 season with a knee injury.
Played his first two games with CH in April 2023.