Quebec Remparts 2024-25 Season Preview

Jacob Titus

Sep 8, 2024, 16:00

Jacob Titus

Sep 8, 2024, 16:00

Photo: Jonathan Roy, Quebec Remparts - Quebec Remparts 2024-25 Season Preview

After completely tearing down the Remparts team of old, General Manager Simon Gagné is laying down the foundation of the future of this team.

The starting piece is centerman Maddox Dagenais, the first overall pick in the 2024 Draft.

Apart from that, one thing was made clear by Gagné, no one is safe and that every position is available for the taking.

This was evidently clear with the team's luxury positions, such as imports and overagers as the team only brought back a single player from last year's team as an overager and have no returning imports.

The returner is defenseman is Antoine Michaud, who is coming off of a career best 20 point (6+14) campaign.

The team's two other imports are fellow defenseman Benjamin Vigneault (28 in 63) and 2024 QMJHL Champion centerman Justin Cote (67 in 68).

As for imports, the team drafted two out of Slovakia, including defenseman Peter Valent and 2025 NHL Draft eligible centerman Andreas Straka.

Valent, who will be turning 19 this December, is coming off of a 33 game season with the Slovak Extraliga's championship winning team, HK Nitra.

Meanwhile the 17-year old Straka had 18 points (9+9) across 21 games at the Slovak U-20 level, as well as 7 points in 21 games on the Slovak Under-18 Team in the second-tier Slovak pro league.

Other notables up front are Antoine Dorion (26 in 68), the St. Louis Blues seventh rounder from this past draft, and 17-year old left winger Xavier Label, who is the returning skater with the highest point totals with 28 (11+17) over 65.

In net is the now 6-foot-8 behemoth Louis-Antoine Denault, who is coming off of a really solid .883 save percentage over 29 games given the state of the team in front of him last season.

He will look to improve his statistics further and solidify himself as one of the top goaltending prospects out of the QMJHL and out of the entire 2025 NHL Draft Class.

Given that they are so fresh off of a complete tear down, it's still hard to label the Remparts as a contender.

That said, it's certainly a step forward in the right direction, and if there's big seasons from many of their key players it could be a giant leap.