Canadiens Demote Top Forward Prospect To The AHL

The Montreal Canadiens have re-assigned top forward prospect Joshua Roy to the AHL. Roy does not require waivers and thus will join the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket, immediately.

The news isn’t particularly surprising given that head coach Martin St-Louis ran new line combinations at practice on Wednesday. While struggling forward Josh Anderson was promoted to the top line, Roy was relegated to practicing with two defencemen, giving us an indication that change was on the horizon.

Roy’s Audition

Roy’s first two games with the Canadiens were far from impressive. Like almost any rookie, he had a hard time adapting to the speed and lack of space that comes with playing in the NHL.

He quickly adapted to his situation, leading to some fairly impressive numbers for the 20-year-old winger.

In addition to scoring his first NHL goal and setting up Joel Armia the following game, Roy’s underlying stats were something to behold. He leads all Habs players this year with a sparkling 58.5 percent expected goals percentage.

Joshua Roy scores his first NHL goal! #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/UNotgl3aaC

— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) January 18, 2024

In other words, when Roy is on the ice, the Canadiens tend to control the play. We also have to remind ourselves Roy played against some of the top teams in the West, in addition to playing games in which the rest of his teammates struggled mightily, such as the pair of demoralizing losses to the Ottawa Senators.

With that in mind, we do have to be careful about the sample size, which is just six games, but all the information available to us points to a player who enjoyed a very successful, albeit short audition with the Montreal Canadiens.

Roy will rejoin a Laval Rocket team that is in the midst of an exciting climb up the North Division standings. After a very difficult start to the season, the Rocket have won eight of their last 10 games, doing so without the help of several of their top players who are either injured or currently playing for the Habs in the NHL.