After finishing Top 5 in the league last season, the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies made the surprising move to trade eventual 2025 Pittsburgh Penguins first round pick Bill Zonnon to start their retool.
Now above a .500 record for the past three seasons, will the Huskies find themselves below that in 2025-26?
Goalies
Newly drafted to the Buffalo Sabres' Samuel Meloche returns as the team's starter after a strong rookie and playoff campaign. He'll look to be a top five goaltender this season.
Acting as backup is goaltender Alexander Raymond, a 2026 NHL Draft eligible who had okay stats in Quebec U18 AAA, just above a .900 save percentage in the regular season, but excelled in the playoffs with a .970 through six games.
Altogether, this makes for a really solid tandem.
Rating: A
Defense
Defensively, the team has certainly taken a step back, thanks to the departure of the team's two overage defensemen from last year in Alex Carr and Ty Higgins. However, it should be able to keep the team afloat.
Returner Axel Dufresne will take up one of the overage slots, after a 27-point, career high season. Given the larger opportunity, Dufresne could very well become a 40 point defenseman.
Alexis Lemire is also returning. Lemire, 19, had 17 points last season and also should be poised to
Import Guus van der Kaalj should be an interesting piece as well, looking very solid at the Hlinka-Gretzky cup and U18s for Switzerland last year. He even appeared in 18 professional games in both the National League and second-tier Swiss League. Of those games, van der Kaalj appeared in six playoff games with Davos.
Apart from that, there's a lot of question marks with regards to depth. Considering also that the team is lacking in terms of real bonafide star power on the blueline as well, and it's hard to give them anything more than a B grade.
Rating: B
Forwards
Up front, the team boasts to returning overagers in Thomas Verdon (57 in 64) and Benjamin Brunelle (28 in 54). Verdon should likely eclipse the point-per-game mark for the first time in his career, meanwhile Brunelle, who is coming off of a down year, will likely look to surpass 50-points.
The team's most exciting player up front, however, is 2026 NHL draft top eligible Lars Steiner, who is already being considered as a potential first round pick after a 60-point rookie campaign. After a weaker back-half of the season and now without the aforementioned Zonnon and overager Antonin Verreault, I could see Steiner struggle to meaningfully surpass his numbers from last season and thus likely fall to the second round. However, if Steiner is able to net 80 points or so, it should do wonders for his draft stock and cement him as not just a legit first rounder, but perhaps even a Top 15 pick.
The other two returning players of note are Samuel Beauchemin (40 in 63), who became a near point-per-game player in the playoffs, and Eliot Ogonowski (27 in 60).
The Huskies also brought on a couple 'pups' of note, including import Vladislav Murzov, who scored 58 points over 44 games in the second-tier Belarussian pro league, and 2024 second round pick and 2027 NHL draft prospect Samuel Rheault.
Much like the defense corps, the forwards lack in depth.
Rating: B
Verdict
The Huskies seem set to take a good step back this year, however only time will tell if they commit to a full rebuild or just a minor retool. They still have some interesting pieces and thus the ability to contend if they have a good start to the season and work the phones.
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