Let’s start with the fairy tale, before the brutal franchise, if you will.
Joël Teasdale had dreamed of it for a long time. Despite the obstacles, he will play Wednesday night, at age 24, his first career game in the National Hockey League.
Never drafted, victim of two serious injuries to the same knee in recent years, each time followed by long rehabilitation, Teasdale persevered.
He was even part of the first wave of cutbacks at the Canadiens’ training camp, recalled colleague Guillaume Lefrançois on Wednesday morning.
An extraordinary streak of 19 goals in 25 games with the Laval Rocket, between mid-December and the end of February, brought him into the spotlight. And no doubt earned him this reminder this week.
Teasdale got the good news in a big way: by Martin St-Louis and Kent Hughes in coach Jean-Francois Houle’s office after the Laval game on Monday.
Teasdale, a native of Repentigny, a former member of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, remains the Rocket’s second scorer this season with 23 goals, three less than Anthony Richard. He deserves to play at least one game, if not two, in the National League.
Defender Frédéric Allard, from Quebec, has a little more skill, but just as rugged a career. He even went through Austria in 2020-2021 and the ECHL, briefly, at the start of his career. He will play his third career game on Wednesday: his second with CH this spring, another with the Nashville Predators two years ago.
If the Canadian had needed a victory at all costs against the Islanders on Wednesday, he would have recalled Jesse Ylönen or Rafaël Harvey-Pinard. Emil Heineman, nine points, including seven goals, in seven games since arriving from Sweden, is arguably third on the offensive list.
In defense, the eternal troubleshooter Corey Schueneman, or the young sensation William Trudeau, would undoubtedly have obtained a recall.
But the organization finds itself in a delicate position. The last two games of the season are irrelevant. It would even be suggested not to win these matches, so as to keep this fifth place in anticipation of the repechage lottery.
The Rocket is engaged in a fierce fight for playoff participation with two games to go. A qualification will allow several hopefuls of the organization, Harvey-Pinard, Ylönen, Heineman, Trudeau, Xavier Simoneau, Jan Mysak, Jayden Struble and also, above all, goalkeeper Cayden Primeau, to benefit from additional matches, in a very competitive context. , to gain experience.
And who also knows a youngster from the junior ranks, Logan Mailloux, Riley Kidney, Jared Davidson, Owen Beck, Filip Mesar or Joshua Roy if, by surprise, their season ends prematurely and Laval’s extends.
How to complete his formation in Montreal for the last two meetings without weakening the Rocket? Recalling Teasdale, who had recently slowed down, with five points in his last twelve games, to the point of being relegated to the fourth line, and Allard, cut ten times from the formation, including Monday for a crucial match for the benefit of Trudeau, Schuneman , Nicolas Beaudin, Mattias Norlinder and Tory Dello.
Wednesday’s game is in Elmont, New York, but Thursday’s against the Bruins at the Bell Center. The clientele deserves the best training possible, but in its long-term vision, the management of the CH believes that it will be more profitable to give some of its young people the benefit of the experience of the playoffs in the American League than to have a Harvey-Pinard and a Schueneman in place of Teasdale and Allard for one match. And it is fully justified.
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They were getting
We can keep cursing coach Darryl Sutter for his shootout choices against Nashville on Monday, but if the Calgary Flames hadn’t lost to the Chicago Blackhawks and Vancouver Canucks in the past week, they wouldn’t be maybe not excluded from the playoffs.
Chicago played the same trick on the Penguins on Tuesday, beating them 5-2…at Pittsburgh to boot!
In a context where they had nothing to lose, the Hawks played the spoilsport against two clubs on which the pressure was strong.
Engaged in a merciless fight with the Penguins for the last places giving access to the playoffs, the Islanders lost 5-2 against the Capitals on Monday.
An Islanders win over the Canadiens on Wednesday would knock the Penguins out of the playoffs for the first time since Sidney Crosby’s rookie season in 2005-06.