Canadiens: Vincent Arseneau Another Feel-Good Story for the Laval Rocket

Arseneau settles into enforcer role

 A native of the small Archipelago of Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Arseneau was a first-round pick in the 2008 QMJHL draft who ultimately had to settle into a physical role to survive both in junior and professionally. After struggling to produce offensively over five seasons with the Acadie-Bathurst Titans and Shawinigan Cataractes, Arseneau settled into a role as more of an enforcer, racking up four consecutive seasons of 100+ penalty minutes.

After making his professional debut in the NHL’s lockout-shortened 2012-13 season with the Lake Erie Monsters, Arseneau bounced between the AHL and ECHL until 2017-18. Since then, he’s been an AHL regular, spending six years with the Vancouver Canucks AHL affiliates in Utica and Abbotsford. After spending last year with the Providence Bruins, Arseneau joins a Rocket team that now, is as development and youth focused as its ever been. Despite snapping his fingers out of place in a fight earlier this season (yes really), Arseneau has found himself a role as he’s been able to do his entire career, also contributing offensively with 3-3-6 totals over 16 games. As it is now, the Rocket’s roster is mostly comprised of prospects and or on-and-off regulars with the Canadiens, from Joshua Roy to Logan Mailloux, to Jakub Dobes, and now Rafael-Harvey Pinard after being placed on and subsequently clearing waivers a few weeks back.

With a 16-8-2 record, the Rocket are one of the better teams in the AHL currently (in spite of a rough recent stretch) which, ultimately, comes down to the well, not even increased, just the first time the Canadiens as a franchise have really majorly focused on development at all. I mentioned it in my writing way long ago, but the Canadiens have never really entered a rebuild, ever. Say what you will, but Montreal’s history until Patrick Roy was traded in 1995, was built on winning, until they tried building the foundation on things like trading Vincent Damphousse for a fourth round pick and Guy Carbonneau for Jim Montgomery and everything crumbled. As I mentioned, the Habs AHL affiliates ultimately suffered as a result, even when prospects like Jason Ward dominated the league for a short period (winning AHL MVP in 2002-03). By the time the Rocket came into the picture, things were even worse somehow, with Laval’s inaugural team losing 12 consecutive games to end their first season as the roster relied on guys like Jackson Leef and Willie Corrin to fill the roster.