|
Teasdale Hoping to Prevail |
|
|
|
|
|
Remember in March 2018 when Tampa Bay signed Alex Barré-Boulet ? Remember how much flak the Habs caught for not signing him? And for letting Tampa Bay get the likes of Jonathan Marchessault, Cedric Paquette, etc.. 6 months later, Montreal Canadiens' GM Marc Bergevin decided to give Joel Teasdale a chance and signed the undrafted free agent to a 3-year entry level contract. Right now, this move is making the GM look good as Teasdale and his Huskies are getting ready to compete for the Memorial Cup.
Since signing with the Habs, Teasdale played half a season with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (where he had spent the last 3 seasons) before being traded to Rouyn-Noranda to complete his season. In the end, he played 66 games in the regular season and managed to notch 80 points. The mighty Huskies dominated the LHJMQ during the season and contrarily to what Tampa did in the NHL, they also dominated in the post season.
Shawinigan put up a good fight, managing to win 2 games against the champions of the season but Rouyn would win the series in 6 games before sweeping both Victoriaville and Rimouski in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. In the President's Cup final, they were taking on the Halifax Mooseheads who were already guaranteed to take part in the Memorial Cup tournament as they are hosting it so just making the final allowed the Huskies to punch their ticket to battle for the supremacy of Canadian Junior hockey. Still, they didn't rest on their laurels and took down Halifax in 6 games.
While Nick Suzuki was the playoffs scoring leader in the OHL, Joel Teasdale did just the same in the Q. In the 20 games it took the Huskies to win it all, Teasdale picked up 34 points, 2 more than the second in scoring Raphaël Lavoie of the Mooseheads who had played 3 more games (side note: have you heard Don Cherry try to say his name? It is truly something). Of his 14 goals, 3 were game winning-ones while 5 were picked up on the power play.
Teasdale and the Huskies will start their tournament on Saturday May 18th when they'll take on Nick Suzuki and the Guelph Storm in what should be an interesting battle of the Habs' prospect in which Suzuki will have to contend with the Q's playoffs MVP Noah Dobson. The stud D-man was picked 12th overall at the last draft by the New York Islanders and has won the QJMHL's championship for a second season in a row and led all blue liners in scoring during the postseason with 29 points. At 6'4, he'll have a certain size advantage over Suzuki but will that be enough to tame the smooth skater? Something tells me that Teasdale and co. are far from having won this battle.
Next season, Teasdale is penciled in to play under Joel Bouchard (his former coach in Blainville-Boisbriand) since the Canadiens have quite a bit of depth on the left wing. Unless of course Bergevin is holding a card or two up his sleeve and manages to move Nicolas Deslauriers. In the meantime, let's see if Teasdale can get himself some hardware before he skates into the sunset as the curtain falls on his Junior career.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»