(Lausanne, Switzerland) Does the quickest path to the National League have to go through the American League? Théo Rochette intends to get to the bottom of the question.
After a successful career with the Quebec Remparts, the attacker uses his Swiss passport wisely.
Undrafted, without an NHL contract, he therefore returned home to Lausanne HC, where he was trained as a teenager.
“I didn’t necessarily get what I wanted in North America, in terms of contract offers,” admits Rochette in an interview with La Presse after a triumph against Kloten at the end of October. It wasn’t very convincing. »
His choice has pleased him so far. After 21 games, he ranks third among his club’s scorers with 12 points (5 goals, 7 assists). The evening of our visit, he hit the target on his first appearance, with a nice individual maneuver.
His goal in returning to Switzerland? In the immediate future, it’s “trying to gain weight, mass, power, explosiveness,” he explains. At 175 pounds, he admits that physical strength is his “main weakness.” He also sees a schedule with “less travel,” so “the best option for working on [his] body.”
“That’s clearly what he said,” recalls the general director of Lausanne, John Fust. But he knows he has work to do here and we have the ideal situation to give him a lot of minutes of play and responsibility. We only have 54 games. So he can work on his body during the season. When you play 80 games, it’s a lot harder. One or two seasons here developing his body, and he’ll be ready to take a chance. »
Rochette is currently completing his last year of contract with Lausanne, but he refuses to set the fall of 2024 as a deadline to try his luck on the North American side of the league. “It’s going to depend on what I’m offered. If it’s next year or in two years, that’ll be it,” he says, simply.
In the meantime, his stay in Switzerland allows him to spend more time with his father, Stéphane, a former player, manager and referee, now an analyst in the Swiss media. This back and forth between Switzerland and Quebec is essentially the story of his life, him who easily switches from the Quebec accent to the European accent, depending on his interlocutor.
“A lot of people talk to me about my accent, ask me to do this accent or that accent. For me, they are like two different languages, I go from one to the other. I have both passports, and the French passport too. Here, I have just returned from five years in Quebec, I loved it and I am going to go back there, because my girlfriend lives there. »
Rochette was also one of the last generation of junior players to have played under the orders of Patrick Roy.
Offensively, he became dominant in his last two seasons with the Remparts, amassing 99, then 106 points, in 66 and 65 games, respectively. The last season ended in glory, with the conquest of the Memorial Cup. Rochette is also taking advantage of the break in the Swiss calendar this week to arrive in Quebec. He will attend the Remparts match this Wednesday.
“It’s his way of being with us. I stayed three and a half years and at the beginning, he took me under his wing. When I arrived, I was coming out of my mononucleosis, I didn’t have much confidence. Plus, I wasn’t drafted [in the NHL] that year. He helped me a lot mentally. He is a coach close to his players, who knows where he is going. Many say to me: “Did you get coached by Patrick Roy? Oh yeah, he shouts a lot. » The image people have of Pat is not the Pat we know. He’s a guy close to his players, a really good person off the ice, who doesn’t hesitate to laugh with us, very open, who talks to his players about the system and the schedule. He is a modern coach who has adapted. »
It now remains to be seen if, when Roy is free as the air, NHL executives will have the same reading and allow him to return to the circuit.
