Montreal Canadiens: Alex Galchenyuk’s Winding Career Takes Bizarre Twist

The Montreal Canadiens drafted Alex Galchenyuk with the third overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft. It was a bit of a controversial decision at the time as he had played just three regular season games in the 2011-12 season due to a knee injury.

He did bounce back from that to begin the next season with the Sarnia Sting and he put up 61 points in 33 games. When the NHL lockout ended at that time, he made the Canadiens lineup and had 27 points in 48 regular season games.

Galchenyuk would play six seasons in Montreal, his best being a 30 goal and 56 point campaign in 2015-16. He appeared to be just breaking out at that time, but his last season in Montreal would be just two years later when he scored 19 goals and 51 points in 81 games.

Since then, Galchenyuk’s NHL career has been a long and twisted road. He has not played two consecutive seasons with the same team since and has rarely gone a full season without being traded.

It all started when Galchenyuk was traded to the Arizona Coyotes for Max Domi. He played one season there before being dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins as part of the Phil Kessel trade. He didn’t get through a season with the Penguins before being dealt to the Minnesota Wild in a trade for Jason Zucker.

The Wild did not re-sign Galchenyuk and he ended up signing with the Ottawa Senators as a free agent. He played just eight games with the Senators before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. He lasted four days in Carolina before being flipped to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played 26 games with the Maple Leafs before once again becoming a free agent.

In the summer of 2021, Galchenyuk inked a one-year contract to return to the Coyotes. He played 60 games and scored 23 points with them before hitting free agency once again. He had to be patient this time, attending Colorado Avalanche training camp on a professional tryout. He signed with them, but played most of 2022-23 in the minors. He had 42 points in 42 AHL games but was held pointless in 11 NHL games.

Galchneyuk’s contract was scheduled to end on June 30th, but he was traded to the Nashville Predators for Ryan Johansen on June 24th. The Predators did not sign him and he was once again an unrestricted free agent on July 1. He quickly signed a one-year contract that should have resulted in a third stint in Arizona with the Coyotes.

That was, until yesterday, when his contract was unexpectedly terminated by the Coyotes less than two weeks after it was signed. This is an unusual move that only really occurs when a player wants the chance to go play overseas and his North American team decides they are willing to let him go from the freed up contract slot.

This does not happen when a player has been part of an organization for 12 days. Katie Strang of The Athletic later shed some light on the situation, reporting the former Canadiens forward had been arrested on July 9 for a number of offences.

Details of what exactly happened have not been released yet, but private property hit and run, disorderly conduct, failure to obey and resisting arrest paint a not-so glamorous picture of a night out in Scottsdale for the 29 year old. It seems he got into some kind of accident with his vehicle which caused some property damage and then he tried to take off.

I’m sure all the details will emerge in the coming days, but one thing seems certain for the well traveled NHL veteran of 654 games. He has likely played his last one.

Want your voice heard? Join the A Winning Habit team!

Write for us!