Montreal Canadiens: Emil Heineman Could be Interesting Addition to Laval Rocket Playoff Lineup

The Montreal Canadiens pulled the trigger early on a Tyler Toffoli trade.

Everyone knew the team would be sellers before the March 21st trade deadline, but they didn’t have to trade anyone with term left on their contracts.

Dealing away Ben Chiarot and Brett Kulak were easier decisions since they were going to be free agents at the end of the season. But the first big trade made by Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton was a player with plenty of term left on a great contract.

Tyler Toffoli was traded to the Calgary Flames on February 14th even though he was in just the second year of a four year contract with a more than reasonable cap hit of $4.25 million. The return for Toffoli was a first round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, veteran winger Tyler Pitlick, a 5th round pick and prospect Emil Heineman.

Most Habs fans reaction to the trade were the same… they all asked, who is this Heineman?

Well, fans on this side of the Atlantic Ocean are about to find out.

Heineman was a second round pick of the Florida Panthers in the 2020 NHL Draft. He was sent to the Calgary Flames for Sam Bennett last season, and then found himself on the move once again in the Toffoli deal.

If there is a player you could compare Heineman to it would be Erik Cole. Heineman is not huge, but has decent size at 6’1 and 185 pounds. What he does have is great speed and he uses his size well to protect the puck while using that speed.

He also have an Erik Cole-like ability to just put his inside shoulder down and drive to the net while defenders try their best to slow him down. He scored 11 goals and 16 points in 38 games in Sweden’s top league this season, and most of them were created due to his speed and many were born of his willingness to crash the net and jam in a loose puck.

Heineman’s season ended early in Sweden as he was injured, and his team was knocked out of the postseason quickly. The 20 year old is now in Montreal, and was skating on his own at the practice facility earlier this week. He looked sharp and appears to be nearly ready to get back into game action.

When he does, Heineman will join a Laval Rocket squad that is just days away from starting a playoff run.

The Rocket will have a great group of defenders with Sami Niku, Xavier Ouellet, Louis Belpedio and Corey Schueneman leading the way. Up front they will be lead by a great top line of Rafael Harvey-Pinard, J.S. Dea and Jesse Ylonen, but where the Rocket are lacking is in scoring depth.

Alex Belzile and Joel Teasdale offer some scoring depth on the wing, but there is certainly room for a young, speedy, hard nosed type of player like Heineman to push his way into a middle six role on the team right away.

It will be interesting to see how the young Swedish winger fits into the Laval lineup. He has all the tools to be an impact player and he is definitely worth keeping an eye on as the regular season winds down over the next two weeks.

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