KAMLOOPS, B.C. — The QMJHL-champion Quebec Remparts defeated the WHL-champion Seattle Thunderbirds 5-0 to win the 103rd Memorial Cup on Sunday. The win gives the Remparts their third Memorial Cup title and marks the fourth consecutive Memorial Cup won by a QMJHL team.
The Memorial Cup, the CHL’s year-end championship, brings together the winners of each of the CHL’s three leagues, which total 60 teams, to crown the best team in major junior hockey.
The Remparts finished the 2022-23 season with a QMJHL-best record of 53-12-3 and swept their way through the first three rounds of the QMJHL playoffs before beating the Halifax Mooseheads in six games in the final. They also finished first in the round-robin portion of this year’s Memorial Cup to advance straight to the final.
The Thunderbirds finished the 2022-23 season with the WHL’s second-best record. They then sailed to the WHL title with a 16-3 record in the playoffs, before going 3-2 in the Memorial Cup, losing twice to the Remparts.
In the final, Buffalo Sabres prospect Vsevolod Komarov (who signed his first NHL contract with the team in March) opened the scoring in the first period, and Columbus Blue Jackets prospect James Malatesta added his fifth goal of the tournament midway through the second. Third-period goals from Kassim Gaudet, St. Louis Blues first-round pick Zachary Bolduc and Charles Savoie sealed it.
Who stood out?
Malatesta was tremendous for the Remparts, and a deserved winner of the tournament’s MVP award. He’s a gamer and just seems to assert himself at this level with his skating, physicality and overall jump. Blue Jackets fans are going to love the way he plays.
I thought the line of Flames prospect Lucas Ciona, Canadiens prospect Jared Davidson and 21-year-old overager Kyle Crnkovic were the best in the tournament.
Though the host Kamloops Blazers finished fourth in this year’s tournament, team captain and Dallas Stars second-round pick Logan Stankoven led the tournament in scoring with nine points in four games. Stars prospect Matthew Seminoff was around it and consistently found his way onto scoring chances for the Blazers as well.
For the Petes, Flyers prospect J.R. Avon made some big plays with his speed (he can wheel!) and Rangers first-rounder Brennan Othmann was in the battle and impactful at both ends.
The end of the Patrick Roy era with the Remparts?
There has been a lot of talk throughout this season about this year being legendary goalie and Hockey Hall of Famer Patrick Roy’s last behind the Remparts bench.
He has been involved with the Remparts in one capacity or another for more than two decades, and has worn a lot of hats.
Owner. Vice president of hockey operations. General manager. Coach. General manager and coach. He was instrumental in reviving the team and bringing them back to the QMJHL in 1997. He coached them to their second Memorial Cup in 2006. And now he has done it again. There was a five-year stretch in there in the 2010s where he left the team to coach the Colorado Avalanche for three seasons and then took a couple of years away from the game, but this team has been his life since his retirement as a player.
And it might be time for him to turn the page. According to reports, he spoke with the Blue Jackets about their coaching vacancy before they settled on Mike Babcock for the job. If he doesn’t get an NHL gig this offseason, I wonder if there may be a world where he stays on as general manager with the Remparts. But I wouldn’t expect him back behind the bench as they begin a rebuild next year.
For my money, this Remparts team was impressively structured for a junior team and extremely well-coached.
Three undrafted goalies make a case for themselves
I thought Seattle’s Thomas Milic, Quebec’s William Rousseau and Peterborough’s Michael Simpson — all of whom have passed through the NHL Draft — were each good this week and this season.
Milic’s pedigree is getting harder and harder to ignore, even considering he’s on the smaller side for a goalie (six feet). He was named to the CHL’s First All-Star Team this week, won the WHL’s goaltender of the year award, was the WHL playoffs MVP, and he backed Canada to gold at this year’s world juniors. Milic (No. 28 among North American goalies) is also the only one of the three who is ranked by NHL Central Scouting in the 2023 draft class, but I expect all three have rookie camp invites coming from NHL clubs at minimum.
Simpson, the OHL playoffs MVP, was better than the numbers indicate (a .894 save percentage this week). The Petes got lit up 10-2 in their round-robin game with the Blazers, and he got the yank after giving up five goals on 20 shots in that one, but he was excellent the rest of the way and kept the Petes — a team I felt was the weakest in this year’s tournament on paper — in games. He was the reason they were able to come from behind to stun the Blazers in overtime in the tiebreaker game. He’s undrafted but after winning the OHL’s playoff MVP award, look for him to get a rookie camp invite from an NHL club.
Required reading
(Photo: Candice Ward / CHL)
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2023-06-05 02:50:10Z
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