Filip Mesar never made a promise he didn’t keep.
Before the Canadian’s training camp, he didn’t brag. “I’m focusing on the main camp and then we’ll see,” he said at the beginning of September.
A month later, the CH camp is behind him, since he was part of a wave of cuts which took away around thirty players last Saturday. He was allowed just one preseason game, in which he was on the ice for just 10 and a half minutes.
By his own admission, his camp has been “ordinary.” “I had high expectations,” he admitted on Tuesday. But it’s a long season. I know what I am capable of. I will do everything I can to prove it. »
The 19-year-old Slovak uttered these words in the Laval Rocket locker room. The Habs’ farm club has started its own camp, and Mesar is one of the many forwards trying to land a position.
Here again, the young man opts for sobriety. Before removing him, the Canadiens’ leaders told him they wanted him to be more responsible defensively and, more broadly, to be more effective without the puck.
Above all, management wants him to see a lot of action. This is where it gets tricky.
“If things go well, I’m going to play big minutes here,” Mesar said. Otherwise, they’ll find something else for me…”
“Something else” would likely be a return to his junior club in Kitchener, Ontario. In his first campaign in North America, in 2022-2023, he certainly produced at a rate of one point per game, but he was not dominant.
However, this is where the “big minutes” will likely be for him. A look at the Rocket’s probable lineup shows a surplus of attackers, both among veterans and among young people who, like him, are making the jump from the junior or university ranks. Jared Davidson has been a revelation at the Canadiens camp. Joshua Roy and Sean Farrell scored points, as did Emil Heineman, who is still with CH.
Nothing is impossible, in short. But we understand Mesar not to breathe optimism. However, he does not admit defeat. “I want to play my way, using my speed well. I have to be better than these guys, whether they are young or old. »
Head coach Jean-François Houle has spent the last few weeks with the organization’s top prospects, first at the rookie tournament, then at the Canadiens camp and now at the Rocket camp. In his eyes, all young people who touch the professional ranks for the first time “are in the same boat”. “We take it day by day with each player,” he recalled. It will be a learning experience for everyone. »
Houle readily speaks of the “good attitude” of Mesar, who arrived with a specific goal in Laval. However, he is not full of praise for it. “In the rookie tournament matches, I found him average,” admitted the pilot. As the camp progressed, I found that things were a little better. We will see this week what he can do in the American League. I like his speed and his feel for the game, but he needs to be better defensively. »
“If he stays here, we’ll have to find him a chair,” Houle continued. Our players need ice to develop. They don’t need to play every game, but they need to be in the lineup and playing on special teams to get better. There will be difficult decisions to make. »
If the picture is not rosy for the Slovak, it is possibly even less so for Riley Kidney.
Mesar arrives with the label of a first-round pick (26th in 2022) and is only 19 years old. The Nova Scotia native is a year older and was a late second round pick in 2021 (63rd overall).
After putting up 110 points in the QMJHL last season, he was a ghost at Canadiens training camp. This only earned him one preseason game, the team’s fourth, after which he was cut. He didn’t even reach 10 minutes of ice time.
Maybe it’s just a question of personality, but he seemed much more brash than his teammate on Tuesday.
He described the prospect of having to fight for position as a “great challenge”. By his own admission, increasing his execution speed will be at the top of his priorities.
Kidney also talked about the importance of gaining physical strength – he added 10 pounds of muscle over the summer. It is also on this point that Jean-François Houle insisted.
“It’s the same thing for Mesar and Sean Farrell,” he said. That and consistency. »
Getting to grips with life in the American League, “it’s not easy,” he recalled. Long coach trips and rigorous schedules can take a toll physically and mentally.
Filip Mesar and Riley Kidney, however, are asking for just that. Because if one risks ending up in the Ontario Junior League, the other could resign himself to joining the Trois-Rivières Lions, in the ECHL, if he does not succeed in making his place in the Rocket.
It would, if anything, be another “nice challenge,” let’s say.
The Rocket will play their first preseason game Thursday in Toronto.
