Inside the CHL – All eyes on Quebec Remparts
Wednesday September 10, 2014
By Aaron Bell
It may be eight months and more than 2,000 games away, but the Quebec Remparts already have a sharp focus on the 2015 MasterCard Memorial Cup.
The Remparts are hosting the Canadian Hockey League’s national championship tournament for the third time – and second in the past 13 years – and have already made some moves to shore up their roster as the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season kicks off.
The Val-d’Or Foreurs open the season with a banner raising ceremony on Wednesday against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. The rest of the league gets underway on Friday with nine games, including the Remparts in Sherbrooke to face the Phoenix.
The Remparts made a big splash shortly after being announced as the Memorial Cup hosts last May when they acquired 20-year-old forward Marc-Olivier Roy from the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. Roy, a second round pick of the Edmonton Oilers, scored 14 goals and 35 points in a shortened 39 game season with the Armada last year and will join returning forwards Anthony Duclair and Adam Erne on the top two lines.
The Remparts then added a pair of veteran defenders in Ryan Graves and Alexander McQuaid in August to shore up the blueline. Graves, a New York Rangers’ prospect helped the Val-d’Or Foreurs win the QMJHL championship and a berth in the Memorial Cup last spring in London.
Graves is relishing another chance at a championship and the Remparts are excited to have him in the fold to try to help them win their first championship since winning the 2006 Memorial Cup in Moncton.
“I’m extremely excited and I know I am pretty privileged to have this opportunity to play in two Memorial Cups, not many people get that, and you have to take advantage of it,” Graves told The Charlottetown Guardian.
“If I was going to be moved, Quebec was definitely the top of my list.”
Dmytro Timashov, Quebec’s second round pick in the Import Draft this past summer, scored two goals and eight points in five pre-season games. He is already easing some of the sting of losing out on Nashville Predators blue-chipper Vladislav Kamenev, who appears to be playing in Russia this season if he doesn’t stick in the NHL.
The Remparts also added Gatineau Olympiques captain Taylor Burke and then made a move two weeks ago to bring in former first round pick Guillaume Gauthier from the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. Gauthier scored a career-high 17 goals last season with Cape Breton and Drummondville but appears to have a new spring in his step since the trade. He potted three goals and added three assists in three pre-season games after the trade.
“Now we are bigger, more physical and we have more leadership,” Remparts coach and GM Philippe Boucher said.
Duclair, who led the Remparts with eight points in three pre-season games, is back after a 50-goal, 99-point campaign last year and is poised to take a run at the QMJHL’s scoring title this season. The third round pick of the New York Rangers has 101 goals in 177 games across three seasons with the Remparts while Erne has racked up better than a point-a-game in his three seasons in Quebec City. The Tampa Bay prospect has three straight 20-plus goal seasons under his belt.
The 2015 MasterCard Memorial Cup will be held in Quebec City from May 21-31.