Joshua Roy and Maksymilian Szuber will both get fresh starts with new teams after a trade Monday between the Canadiens and Utah Mammoth.
The Canadiens sent Roy, a 22-year-old forward, to Utah in exchange for Szuber, a 23-year-old defenceman.
Roy, selected in the fifth round (150th overall) of the 2021 NHL Draft, had 23-22-45 totals in 57 games this season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket. The 6-foot, 192-pound winger only played three games with the Canadiens this season and was held without a point. In 38 career games with the Canadiens, Roy had 6-5-11 totals.
Szuber, selected in the sixth round (163rd overall) of the 2022 NHL Draft, had 11-16-27 totals and 67 penalty minutes in 65 games this season with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners. The 6-foot-3, 220-pounder, who shoots left, has only played one game in the NHL with the Arizona Coyotes in 2023-24.
Roy, who is from Saint-Georges-De-Beauce, was the No. 1 overall pick at the 2019 QMJHL Draft by the Saint John Sea Dogs. He posted 51-68-119 totals in 66 games with the QMJHL’s Sherbrooke Phoenix the season after the Canadiens drafted him, but he has struggled to find a spot in the NHL.
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“I feel the league has gotten away from just top-six (forwards),” Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis said this season when asked about Roy. “I feel like you have a lot of middle six, too. I don’t know exactly where his chair’s going to be, but I know that there’s a lot of great offensive players that get to the NHL and they have to not necessarily grab a top-six chair because they’re not open, let’s say. So I don’t know what his ceiling is, but I know for him to build his runway he’s just got to grab a chair. To me, that’s where Josh is and the only way to grab a chair is to have some details in your game that the coach can trust you. We have that and now it’s just stack these actions, stack these shifts, stack these games.
“With everybody healthy, I don’t think he’s a top-six chair right now,” St. Louis added. “That doesn’t mean he can’t have a chair.”
Roy will be hoping to find a chair with the Mammoth.
Szuber won a silver medal with Germany at the 2023 IIHF World Championship. The Rocket can use another defenceman like Szuber with AHL experience after trading 23-year-old William Trudeau to the New York Rangers on Friday in exchange for forward Brett Berard.