Montreal Canadiens: Roster Turnover Continues For Laval Rocket With JC Beaudin Leaving

The Montreal Canadiens roster is going to look similar, maybe far too similar to the one that ended the 2021-22 season. Shea Weber was traded but he wasn’t playing anyway. Jeff Petry is gone, with Mike Matheson replacing him, but there really wasn’t a huge turnover on the Habs roster.

The same can not be said for their minor league affiliate, the Laval Rocket. After a run to the Calder Cup semifinal, the Rocket have gone through quite a transition this offseason. It is really not that uncommon for an AHL team to have a lot of changes, and the Rocket are no exception.

That continued today with news that winger Jean-Christophe Beaudin is leaving the organization. Not just the organization, he is leaving the league and the continent.

The 25 year old native of Longueuil, Quebec played just one season in Laval and will be heading to Germany next season to play for the Grizzlys Wolfsburg. One of his teammates there will be goaltender Justin Pogge, the guy the Toronto Maple Leafs once thought was better to keep around than Tuukka Rask.

Beaudin scored four goals and 17 points in his lone season with the Rocket and suited up for just three of their playoff games before being injured. He now joins J.S. Dea, Xavier Ouellet, Louie Belpedio, Toby Bisson, Kevin Roy, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo, Sami Niku, Cedric Paquette, and Devante Smith-Pelly as players who left the Laval Rocket this offseason.

It will be interesting to see who steps in and takes their place. But we should see a much younger version of the Rocket in the upcoming season. Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar could be on the roster but that is yet to be determined. Emil Heineman, Jan Mysak, Anthony Richard, Mitchell Stephens, Ryan Francis and Emile Poirier will fill some of those voids up front.

The blue line appears to be a very young group of defenders. Madison Bowey is 27 years old and will be the veteran defender guiding the likes of Kaiden Guhle, Mattias Norlinder, Justin Barron, Arber Xhekaj, Gianni Fairbrother and Otto Leskinen will fill out the lineup on the back end.

The Rocket finally made a postseason appearance last year and were good once they got there. Next season looks like more of a development season but that is good news for the younger players who will be able to take on big roles and round out their games.

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