Growing pains during 2023-24 campaign build resilience, character for youth in Laval
By Evan Milner @CanadiensMTL / canadiens.com
MONTREAL – The city’s La Ronde amusement park doesn’t begin operations until mid-May, but the rollercoaster experience was open year-round for the Laval Rocket, who narrowly missed the AHL playoffs for the first time in three years.
Like the Goliath, a turbulent up-and-down 2023-24 season was to be expected for the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate. As a matter of fact, Rocket head coach Jean-François Houle called it at the Habs’ 2023 development camp last July, predicting there would be “harsh times in the beginning of the season,” for the inexperienced roster. And there were. Laval’s lowly 1-6-1 start to the year was humbling for the young, but talented group.
However, the Rocket bench boss remained optimistic for a better second half. In the same breath that day in July, Houle stated, “after Christmas, I think they’re going to learn a lot from the League, and they’ll be better from it.” And they were. Montreal’s farm team climbed to the top of the rollercoaster and reached its peak on Jan. 24, the end date of a 10-game stretch that saw the Rocket go 8-1-1 coming out of the holiday break.
From there, the ebbs and flows of Laval’s season continued but to lesser extremes. The lows were never as low, the highs never as high, and it wasn’t until the team’s penultimate game of the season that the joyride crash-landed when the Rocket were officially eliminated from the Calder Cup playoff race.
But this season was about more than just playoffs; it was about balancing immediate success with the long-term growth of the organization. Houle and his staff were tasked with developing a young core – including multiple shoe-in future NHLers – while trying to win games and doing it all the ‘right way.’
“You want to make sure your players develop properly and to do so, you need to put them in certain scenarios so that the player gets experience in different game situations, which isn’t always easy,” said Houle during his end-of-season press conference.
Goaltender Jakub Dobes, defenseman Logan Mailloux and forward Joshua Roy were among a group of players that were strapping into the ride for the first time as rookies in the AHL.
“When you have a young core, there’s a learning curve [and] the only way to get the…
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