The Laval Rocket are coming off another strong regular season, one that ended the same way the previous one did: with a North Division title and a quick playoff exit. Laval finished first in the division for a second straight year, but the postseason didn’t last long, as the Rocket fell in the opening round to the Toronto Marlies.
Now the organization is turning the page with a new voice behind the bench. Pascal Vincent has left the Canadiens’ system to join the Seattle Kraken as an assistant coach, and a few weeks later Montreal announced that Daniel Jacob would take over as Laval’s head coach.
Jacob is hardly new to the AHL grind. He spent time with Laval from 2018-19 through 2020-21, then had one-year stops with the San Diego Gulls and Syracuse Crunch before returning to Laval as part of Vincent’s staff as an assistant coach. What changes now is the title: this will be his first season as a head coach in professional hockey.
The Canadiens appear to be making sure that first year comes with some help. General manager Kent Hughes has spent the offseason adding experience to the AHL side, even if the NHL roster hasn’t been bolstered.
Montreal has already traded for three players with plenty of AHL mileage in Brett Berard, Hunter McKown, and Sasha Pastujov. Each of them has at least 145 career AHL games. The Canadiens also brought back Jared Davidson, who has 160 AHL games under his belt, and signed goalie Kaapo Kahkonen, who has played more than 100 games in both the NHL and the AHL.
There’s also the prospect layer to consider. Owen Beck, Florian Xhekaj, David Reinbacher, and Adam Engstrom are all set to compete for spots at Canadiens training camp, and anyone who doesn’t break camp in the NHL would only deepen an already strong Laval roster.
That’s the setup for Jacob’s first season in charge: a new head coach stepping into a winning environment, with the Canadiens doing what they can to give him a roster capable of keeping the Rocket near the top of the North Division.
In Other News...
Canadiens May Finally Be Closing In On Their Biggest Lineup Need
Kent Hughes has been working the phones as the Canadiens try to solve a problem that has lingered for a while: finding a true second-line center. Montreal has been in trade discussions with multiple teams, including Columbus and Toronto, as the front office continues to weigh different ways to strengthen the middle of the ice and give the roster a more stable look down the lineup.
The search has not been limited to one obvious path, and the Canadiens are still sorting through a range of possibilities rather than locking onto a single name. Even with outside buzz around other players, the bigger picture remains the same for Montreal, which is still chasing the kind of center help that could change the shape of the lineup if Hughes finds the right deal. [Read more 🡒]
Jesperi Kotkaniemi Is Back In The Spotlight For A Familiar Reason
Jesperi Kotkaniemi has a way of drifting back into the conversation around Montreal, even from a few time zones away. The former Canadiens forward, now with the Carolina Hurricanes, recently brought the Stanley Cup to his hometown arena in Pori, Finland, a reminder that his career has taken a long and winding route since he left Quebec.
The latest buzz around him is less celebratory, though, and it comes with the kind of familiar uncertainty that has followed him for stretches of his tenure in Carolina. Kotkaniemi is still under contract for four more years with a $4.82 million cap hit, and the Hurricanes have already shown a willingness to keep his name in the mix when trade chatter heats up. For now, he remains in Carolina, but his place in the picture has a habit of coming up whenever the roster starts to shift. [Read more 🡒]