Mikus Vecvanags of the Montreal CanadiensAfter being pre-emptively labelled as the Montreal Canadiens' sole pick from the QMJHL at the draft by Habs Director of Player Personnel Martin Lapointe, Mikus Vecvanags shocked the world when he signed in the BCHL's Brooks Bandits instead.
Well, nearly six months later, Vecvanags officially signs with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
The 18-year old goaltender posted an .881 over five games with the Bandits, on a 4-1-0 record.
The Latvian netminder was drafted twice last summer, first by the Montreal Canadiens in the fifth round of the 2024 NHL Draft. At that draft, the Habs took a lot of slack for not picking a single Quebec-born or QMJHL player.
After giving an unsatisfactory answer to reporters about the question, Lapointe made an off-comment about how technically the team did draft a QMJHLer as 'Mikus the goalie' will play for Blainville in 2024-25.
Up to that point, though, Vecvanags hadn't yet been taken in the CHL import draft, which landed on July 3rd. When the day came, the Titan swooped in and took him a few spots ahead.
Safe to say that the long game paid off for the Titan as they finally got their guy, albeit months later.
As for the Armada? They ended up taking Slovak goaltender Martin Haronik in his place, and was recently was cut by the team.
The expectation is that he'll likely backup overager Josh Fleming (.926 over 25) for the remainder of the season, before getting the shot to start next season with prospect Proulx (.935 over 15 in U-18 AAA) as his likely backup.
This is the second move Vecvanags' had been involved in this week, as on Christmas Eve he committed to the University of Maine of the NCAA.