QMJHL west division preview: Can the Phoenix finally make the jump?

Yahoo’s Buzzing the Net will preview the upcoming 2015-16 QMJHL season, going division by division and asking the biggest question of each team. Here is the West Division preview. The East preview is available

here, and the Maritime Division preview will follow. The season opens on Thursday with the defending President’s Cup champion Rimouski Oceanic hosting the Shawinigan Cataractes

Sherbrooke Phoenix – 2014-15 record: 36-26-2-4 for 78 points; Division finish: 3rd; Result: Lost to Charlottetown in first round;

Are the Phoenix equipped enough to make a big run at the President’s Cup?

The Sherbrooke Phoenix are making the leap for the first time as a sure-fire contender, and they have the cornerstones in place. Good depth on offence led by Montreal Canadiens pick Daniel Audette, a solid blueline with three NHL picks in the fold, and a great but young goaltender.

Swiss sensation Kay Schweri is back for a second run with the team, along with Columbus Blue Jackets pick Julien Pelletier. Guillaume Gauthier brings Memorial Cup experience from last season, while their three best defenders, Vancouver Canucks pick Carl Neill and San Jose Sharks selections Jérémy Roy and Alexis Vanier provide a lot of offence from the back end. The goals start in their own zone in Sherbrooke and they move the puck extremely well from the back-end.

Evan Fitzpatrick, the first goaltender taken a year ago in the QMJHL draft, is ready to take over the starting job at 17. His backup is former Acadie-Bathurst Titan and Baie-Comeau Drakkar goalie Alexandre Lagacé, who will provide adequate-but-not-spectacular goalkeeping. The Phoenix are putting everything in the Fitzpatrick basket in his draft season, and it could sink or swim the season.

This is the first time for many of the players on the team, as well as GM Patrick Charbonneau and Judes Vallée, will feel the pressure of big expectations. Will Vallée and the staff make the tough decisions in the crunch? Will Charbonneau not be afraid to make that big move to jump to the next level?

It remains to be seen, but Charbonneau did trade his then-17-year-old captain Jonathan Desroches to Cape Breton a couple summers ago. That kind of move does take some balls, to trade your captain-at-the-time and a player the team invested some time and assets into. That move could be foreshadowing for the tough deals the Phoenix may be forced to make.

Rouyn-Noranda Huskies – 2014-15 record: 33-30-4-1 for 71 points; Division finish: 4th; Result: Lost to Val-d’Or in first round;

Can the Huskies make the jump to contender?

Their talent up front says yes. Ottawa Senator prospect Francis Perron leads a very deep offence that added Toronto Maple Leaf pick Martins Dzierkals in the CHL import draft.

They are sitting at two 20-year-old players, so they can add a cheap overager early in the season for next to nothing and get even better, and veteran forwards likeColorado Avalanche picks Julien Nantel and Jean-Christophe Beaudin and Antoine Waked can provide secondary scoring. Rookies like Dzierkals, Louis-Filip Côté and pre-season surprise Peter Abbandonato will flesh out that depth.

On the blueline, a top-2 of Boston Bruins pick Jérémy Lauzon and Philippe Myers isn’t anything to sneeze at, along with 20-year-old Allan Caron, but an addition to the blueline would go a long way.

While Samuel Harvey won the starting nod in the playoffs, Jérémy Belisle is still in the fold, and they don’t have a secure number one goaltender. Both goalies played in tandem last season, but Harvey, now 17, got the lion’s share in the post-season, and will likely start the season as the number one netminder.

Val-d’Or Foreurs – 2014-15 record: 35-25-3-5 for 78 points; Division finish: 2nd; Result: Lost to Rimouski in third round;

Are the Foreurs trying to make junior hockey’s biggest team?

While the QMJHL will usually have smaller teams than their counterparts to the west and in Ontario, the Foreurs have collected a lot of big players.

The Foreurs have five forwards over 200 pounds, including three forwards (Julien Gauthier, Julien Proulx and Avalanche pick Alexis Pépin) tip the scales at over 220 pounds. Four blueliners are over 200 pounds too, including 6’7” Jack Van Boekel at 216 pounds and Tyler Higgins at 213.

New netminder Dereck Baribeau is 6’5”, as well.

The Foreurs will be a bruising team this season, especially at home, and taking advantage of the long bus rides up the Abitibi-Témiscamingue to get there.

They have some talent too, with Gauthier set to go early in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, and veterans like Nashville Predator pick Anthony Richard and Philadelphia prospect Nicolas Aubé-Kubel who remember the 2014 President’s Cup title.

Gatineau Olympiques – 2014-15 record: 31-31-0-6 for 68 points; Division finish: 5th; Result: Lost to Rimouski in second round;

Will the Olympiques finish higher in the division while getting knocked out of the playoffs earlier?

It’s worth noting the Olympiques 14th place finish last season was a misnomer. They ran into some goalie troubles and some major injury troubles until about February, when they started ringing off some wins and their trading period pickups meshed together with the rest of the team. They upset a not-as-strong-as-previous-years Blainville-Boisbriand team in the first round, and took the President’s Cup winners to five games.

They return a solid forward group that could cause some damage, and a veteran blueline, but the loss of starting netminder Alex Bureau, who decided to retire during training camp, is a major hit to the team.

They have two inexperienced goalies to rely on, Bo Taylor and Mathieu Bellemare. They decided to trade goalie Nicolas Lachance to Drummondville and roll with three overage players instead of a 20-year-old goaltender. Taylor will be the starter to begin the year, and had a good camp.

Their depth and experience will be a good draw, and they are a dark horse team if either Taylor/Bellemare/free agent/goalie pickup can perform at an above-average level.

Blainville-Boisbriand Armada – 2014-15 record: 41-18-2-7 for 91 points; Division finish: 1st; Result: Lost to Gatineau in second round;

Is there more to this team than Samuel Montembeault?

Well, Philippe Sanche is back up front! And Philippe Bureau-Blais can score from the blueline, assuming they both stay for the season.

And that’s about it.

The Armada will have some decisions to make regarding their lineup, as they come into the year with five overagers. Joining Sanche and Bureau-Blais are veteran forwards Fabrizio Ricci and Samuel Tremblay and defender Nathanael Halbert. Two of them will likely be shopped for picks or prospects.

Euro pickup Kristian Pospisil is a promising addition and will have to perform with Sanche for a good forward unit. The other Euro pickup, Christian Blomqvist, is more of a project.

It will be a trying year for the boys in black and white, and sometimes navy and yellow with the third uniforms. Montembeault, a Florida Panthers pick, will be left out to dry a lot and will have to make plent of saves.

The Armada play a puck-possession, controlled game that keeps shots to the outside and blocks a lot of shots, but this is the worst team they’ve had since Joël Bouchard and his group moved the team from the Verdun Auditorium, and rebuilding isn’t a bad thing. Their play-style makes their teams look better on the ice than on paper, though, and with maybe the best goaltender in the league in the fold, anything is possible.

Drummondville Voltigeurs – 2014-15 record: 26-38-1-3 for 56 points; Division finish: 6th; Result: Missed playoffs;

Will the Voltigeurs make the playoffs?

Ehhhhhhh. It’s going to be a long season in Drummondville again this year. At least it will be expected.

Their top prize for giving up Charles-David Beaudoin to Rimouski, Anthony DeLuca, decided to get the heck out of dodge and go pro instead. Fellow overager Félix Girard (not the Predators pick) has played his whole hockey career in Switzerland until this season. Netminder Nicolas Lachance is also an overager, and was the backup Olympiques netminder last season, but did see a higher-than-average games for a second banana.

Even their first rounder last year was sent to Saint John and ended up being the first overall pick. The Volts could have had Joe Veleno, but opted not to.

Their defensive corps has four blueliners 19-years-old or older, but they will all be available for the highest bidder some Christmas. And when the articles come out before the season with quotes from the coach saying how competitive the team will be, that’s a sure sign of a team who doesn’t have any expectations for the year.

Top three scorers Alex Barré-Boulet, Michael Carcone and new captain Joey Ratelle are back, and defender Sergei Boikov is an Avalanche pick. Most of the forwards are young and will have a baptism by fire. The whole team will be thrown against the wall to see what sticks. It’s going to be a long year.