Canadiens: Checking In On Four Former Fringe Habs Now Playing Overseas

Christian Thomas

Speak of the devil, Thomas has, as mentioned before, been involved in trades with the past two players, yet ultimately, wound up taking a very similar career path (who would’ve thought?) Much like Kristo, Thomas was a second-round pick of the New York Rangers in 2010 who had posted immensely impressive numbers with the OHL’s Oshawa Generals.

While he had his moments here and there in the AHL, Thomas was never really given a chance offensively with any club he played for, and the same applied to his brief time in the NHL. Barring an 18-game stint with the Habs in 2014-15 (netting his only NHL goal) Thomas headed overseas after two productive seasons with the Hershey Bears and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

The son of NHL regular and perennial goal scorer Steve Thomas, Christian has done what he can across the KHL, SweHL, NLA, and SM-Liiga, but in spite of great speed, solid shooting and playmaking abilities, Thomas has again bounced around quite a lot, struggling once again with his consistency.

While he’s yet to find his footing again in the KHL, Thomas had a decent first season with Chelyabinsk Traktor, and emerged as a solid contributor with KooKoo in the SM-Liiga in 2019-20. After going scoreless over nine games in the KHL to start this season, Thomas finished 2021-22 as a productive player for Bern SC of the NLA, posting 10-7-17 totals over 28 games.