Memorial Cup preview: Top 10 Quebec Remparts observations

With the King of Late Night signing off, Buzzing The Net is borrowing the Top Ten trope to profile the Memorial Cup teams. It's an homage. Or as David Letterman would say to someone who tried to slip a fancy word by him, "you mean stealing."

Presenting the host Quebec Remparts, who are the only team to make a Memorial Cup tournament three times without winning the league championship. They last won the cup in 2006.

10. “Man, that Erne guy can score.”

The 2015 playoffs belonged to the American kid from New Haven, CT.

Adam Erne

dented the twine 21 times in 22 games for the Remparts in the 2015 playoffs, enough to win the Guy Lafleur trophy as the playoff’s most valuable player. He was the first player to win the honour in a losing effort since Alain Lemieux, Mario’s older brother, did it with the Trois-Rivières Draveurs in 1980-81. He’s only the second player ever to do so.

The Tampa Bay pick had 41 goals in the regular season to go with his 86 points as he crept up the lineup and moved into first-line duties.

9. “Didn’t that guy play for the Rangers this year?”

Erne is the best performing Rempart in the playoffs, but he’s not the player on the team with the most pedigree.

That would be Anthony Duclair, who played the first half of the season with the New York Rangers. He joined Team Canada at the World Juniors, and then was sent back to Quebec the day the WJC was over.

He put up 34 points in his 26 games of stretch run for the team, which saw him sit as a healthy scratch and saw him get dealt from New York to Arizona, and he had a meh first two rounds of the playoffs.

He poured it on in the Moncton series, with 10 points in a four-game sweep, and added 10 more in the seven game final against the Rimouski Oceanic. According to the Province, he had seven shot attempts in the first eleven minutes of game 7. That is the play of a Duclair who is finally dialed in.

8. “…and didn’t those guys play in this tournament before?”

The Remparts boast three key players with extensive Memorial Cup experience.

Blueliner Ryan Graves is appearing in his second straight tourney after joining the Val-d’Or Foreurs on their run to the semi-final where they lost to eventual champions the Edmonton Oil Kings in triple overtime. Graves is a big (6’5”, 215) minute eater on defence who provides a Chris Pronger-like confidence and meanness to the lineup. It’s one that sets an example and tone for the team.

Fellow defenceman Matt Murphy and netminder Zach Fucale were members of the Memorial Cup winning Halifax Mooseheads in 2013. Fucale backstopped the team to the win and Murphy was a key defender. Their roles are the same in 2015. Murphy plays key shutdown minutes and Fucale, after a middling regular season and a bad start to the playoffs, provided many highlight reel saves in the later stages of the post-season to get the Remparts to within a goal of the President’s Cup.

7. “The coach; I know him from somewhere, but he’s not that other guy.”

Remparts bench boss Philippe Boucher had a 16-year NHL career, including an NHL all-star game appearance, and he retired a Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. He was a useful offensive defenceman in his time, not a star but a powerplay quarterback who could put points up on the board.

Try as he might, he’s no Patrick Roy, the imposing superstar who used to patrol the bench on the home side of the Colisée Pepsi . Roy’s nine seasons steering the Remparts included a Memorial Cup title in 2006, so Boucher has some work to do.

In the fall, Rimouski coach Serge Beausoleil told the press that Boucher couldn’t “handle pressure”. Boucher had a Roy-like moment responding to that, and the quote is ironic, seeing as how Boucher built what Beausoleil now is credited for: the Rimouski Oceanic roster. Boucher was Beausoleil’s boss before he took the job in Quebec.

As the pressure mounted in the playoffs, Beausoleil accused Boucher and the Remparts of manipulating the schedule in their favour for the President’s Cup finals. Boucher shot back by saying no one in the organization has the power to do that, and that Beausoleil was just looking for excuses.

There will be plenty of time on the CHL’s biggest stage to show rival Beausoleil that Boucher means business.

6. “Where’s Tkachev?”

Edmonton Oiler fans remember the name Vladimir Tkachev from the pre-season, when he made such a splash in training camp that the Oilers tried to sign the waterbug undrafted Russian, only to learn they couldn’t due to his previous experience in the KHL.

Tkachev had an up-and-down sophomore campaign in the QMJHL this season, collecting 49 points in 46 games split between the Moncton Wildcats and the Remparts. He added 16 points in the playoffs, but went scoreless in the final. Tkachev will need to get it going to give the Remparts that all-important secondary scoring.

5. “Wow, our top line is flying!”

Duclair, Erne and captain Kurt Etchegary were only put on a line together in the middle of the Wildcats series, but they instantly clicked, especially in the final. Duclair had ten points, as did Erne, with six goals, and Etchegary had eight points of his own in the seven games.

On paper the line makes sense. Duclair provides the strong muscle and some of the playmaking. Erne has the big shot. Etchegary is the puck go-getter and more muscle, while adding a playmaking element.

That line will be Quebec’s go-to starting Friday against the Kelowna Rockets, but it better perform, or Boucher will be back to the drawing board.

4. “Of course, we deserve to be here!”

The Remparts took their duties as host seriously, coming game 7 overtime short of making the tournament through the front door. It could have ended in disaster with a seven-game first round series against the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, but the Remparts got the boat in gear after that and stomped the Charlottetown Islanders and the Wildcats to get to the finals, winning 11 games in a row at one point.

There is talk, fueled somewhat by London’s awful 0-3 showing last year and Saskatoon’s first-round knockout the year before, that the host team format needs to be reworked. There is some talks about changing it, from guaranteeing it to a final four team, to a March Madness format, to leaving it alone.

How quickly people forget that host teams had a good run from 2004 to 2012, where the host was in the final game every year except 2009. The fun sidebar of that fact is the hosts in 2003 were the Remparts, and the 2009 tourney was played in Rimouski.

3. “Thankfully, Roy is back.”

Marc-Olivier Roy drew back into the lineup in games 6 and 7 after getting knocked out of the lineup in game 1 of the Moncton series. The Oilers pick had 50 points in 59 games in the regular season and had 11 points in the playoffs, but he plays that pivotal second line center slot that the Remparts need to really use their depth.

Without it, the Remparts are forced to use a bottom six center, like Massimo Carozza, up on the top lines, or shift winger Jérome Verrier to the middle. With Roy back, he can handle the second line and second powerplay duties and the Remparts are at full strength, just as they were built.

2. “Watch Timashov thread the needle here.”

The other European player the Remparts boast is the 92^nd ranked North American prospect in NHL Central Scouting as a 1996-born.

Dmytro Timashov’s playmaking and passing skills, though, are at a first round level.

The Ukrainian can thread the needle. He is the best playmaker on the roster and an assist machine. His 71 assists were good enough for second in the QMJHL in the regular season (a distant second behind Wildcats forward Conor Garland, who boasted 94 helpers), and he added 15 more in the playoffs.

Timashov and Tkachev rolling off the half-wall on a cycle is enough to send a chill down a defender’s spine. Look for Timashov to set up Erne on the powerplay for his best opportunities at success in the tournament.

1. “You mean they won’t play here anymore?”

The Colisée Pepsi will no longer be the home of high-level hockey after this year’s tournament. The Remparts have already signed a rent agreement to move to the giant Centre Vidéotron next door for next season, and after a few farewell concerts and events, the old building will make way for the new one.

The old arena, built in 1949, was known as the house that Jean Béliveau built, as le Gros Bill played there with the senior Québec Aces before joining the Montreal Canadiens full time. The Quebec Nordiques of the WHA also called the arena home, and it underwent a massive renovation in 1980, putting seats wherever they fit and raising the roof to accommodate the Nordiques’ jump to the NHL.

In the 1980s, it was host to many a spirited Habs-Nords affair at the height of the rivalry, but the Nordiques found the Colisée too small, too cramped and void of luxury boxes, so they left to Colorado, leaving the building empty. It was filled with the Québec Rafales of the IHL for two seasons, then the Québec Citadelles of the AHL, who moved in along with this edition of the Remparts in 1999. The Citadelles moved on, but the Remparts stayed, outdrawing the Citadelles most nights and giving the fans in la vieille capitale something to cheer about, as the faithful led the CHL in attendance year after year.

The future of the Colisée Pepsi was in doubt until February, when Québec City mayor Régis Labeaume announced that the building will ultimately be demolished. So if you’re going to the games or watching on TV, be sure to take a good look at history before it’s gone.