Being at the top doesn’t keep you safe in the QMJHL. The second-place Shawinigan Cataractes fired head coach Martin Bernard on Wednesday. And the league’s top scorer, Conor Garland, was a healthy scratch for the Moncton Wildcats that night.
The coaching change in Shawinigan was a big shocker. This is a team all in on winning the league this season, making trades for Dmytro Timashov, Danny Moynihan, Gabriel Gagné, Cavan Fitzgerald and Philippe Cadorette. It’s not like the team was struggling. At the time of the firing, the Cataractes had only lost four games in regulation since the trading period ended. Those losses all came to bottom-tier teams: Blainville-Boisbriand, Chicoutimi, Halifax and Québec. Despite the good record, general manager Martin Mondou appears to not be happy with how the team is playing.
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Claude Bouchard returns to the QMJHL in a head coaching position for the first time in a ten years. He led Val-d’Or Foreurs to a President Cup in the 2000-01 season, his first in the ‘Q’. After six years in Val-d’Or, he served as an assistant in Gatineau for the 2008-09 season then Baie-Comeau from 2013-2015. In his first two games behind the bench, Shawinigan picked up a pair of wins: 4-1 over Baie-Comeau and 7-2 over Drummondville.
Meanwhile in Moncton, Connor Garland was a healthy scratch against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. Heading into the game, Moncton lost nine games in a row and lost their Maritimes Division lead in the process. Message sent. Moncton responded with a 4-2 win with the league’s top scorer in the press box. On Saturday night with Garland back in the lineup, Moncton once again picked up the win, 5-1 over Sherbrooke. Garland finished the game with a goal and assist.
Here’s what happened around the ‘Q’ this weekend:
Marco Pietroniro fired
We’ll get our weekly bad Baie-Comeau Drakkar news out of the way early here. Head coach Marco Pietroniro was fired on Sunday, the day after a 4-3 OT loss to Chicoutimi. The team’s last win came on January 20 — one of only eight wins on the season. They’re in last place with an 8-43-2-2 record and 20 points, so the firing isn’t that big of a surprise. General Manager Steve Ahern will take over coaching duties for the time being.
Sherbrooke miserable Maritimes road trip
While we’re on the topic of bad teams and coaching changes, the Sherbrooke Phoenix had a terrible swing through the Maritimes this week. In order they lost 6-2 to Acadie-Bathurst Titan, 5-1 to Moncton and 5-1 to Halifax. It’s Sherbrooke’s sixth consecutive loss with two coming in extra time.
Sherbrooke’s season has been underwhelming after heading into the season with what looked like one of the league’s best teams on paper. On Dec. 9, the team fired GM Patrick Charbonneau and head coach Judes Vallée. The firings haven’t exactly rejuvenated the Phoenix. Since the firings, the team has a 9-15-2 record and are in 15th place with 49 points. The losses to Acadie-Bathurst and Halifax were extra painful as both teams are near Sherbrooke in the standings.
Daniel Audette, a fifth-round pick by the Montreal Canadiens in 2014, missed the Halifax game and it’s unclear how long he’ll be out of the lineup. He plays on the top line and is second on the team in points with 50.
Defenceman Jérémy Roy, the 31st overall pick of the 2015 draft by the San Jose Sharks, was injured in the loss against Halifax. He went down hard in front of the net in the first period with a lower body injury and didn’t return to the game after being helped off the ice by his teammates. Roy missed a couple weeks of action in November with a leg injury.
Top prospect race close
Is Pierre-Luc Dubois or Julien Gauthier the top NHL draft-eligible prospect in the ‘Q’? The two players are tearing up the league and a case could be made for either player. Cape Breton’s Dubois had a monstrous week, scoring three goals and four assists in two games and was named the league’s first star of the week. Dubois now is sixth in league scoring with 82 points, including 35 goals.
Val-d’Or’s Julien Gauthier had three goals in a pair of games this weekend, and in typical Gauthier style, had no assists. The goals brought his total up to 39 on the season, third in the league.
The two prospects go head-to-head Saturday night in a game that’s sure to attract lots of NHL scouts.
Kislev shuts the door
Québec Remparts rookie goalie Evgeny Kiselev posted 29 saves en route to his first QMJHL shutout in a 1-0 win over the rival Rimouski Océanic. Earlier in the week, he had a 2-1 win over Shawinigan, 12 hours before the Cataractes dismissed Martin Bernard.
Kiselev sports a 4-17 record, with 15 of those losses coming from his stint in Bai-Comeau to start the season. He was claimed off waivers by the Remparts after the trading period. His numbers have improved significantly since the trade — a GAA of 4.45 with the Drakkar and 2.69 with the Remparts, and a 0.864 save percentage compared to 0.929.
He’s originally from Moscow, Russia but came to North America last season, playing for the Waterloo Siskens in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League. The Shawinigan Cataractes invited him to training camp before trading him to Baie-Comeau. European goalies can’t be drafted in the CHL Import draft, however there’s a loophole where European goalies can play in the league if they’ve played a season in North America already. Shawinigan drafted Russian Mikhail Denisov in the second round of the QMJHL draft in June. He played two seasons with the Boston Jr. Bruins before this year.