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Caleb Desnoyers: to be a playoff MVP at his age is an incredible feat in the QMJHL
Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Caleb Desnoyers: to be a playoff MVP at his age is an incredible feat in the QMJHL
Credit: Getty Images
Yesterday, as you may have seen, the Moncton Wildcats clinched the QMJHL title against the Rimouski Oceanic.

It was already known that both the Wildcats and the Océanic would be participating in the Memorial Cup, as the tournament is presented in Rimouski. The two clubs will join the Medicine Hat Tigers and the London Knights.

The tournament kicks off on May 22, two days from now.

In Quebec, if there’s one player we’ll be keeping an eye on, it’s Caleb Desnoyers. The Moncton Wildcats player just turned 18, and he’s been killing it in the Q series.

In 19 games alone, he had 30 points. It’s no coincidence that he won the Guy-Lafleur trophy, awarded to the playoff MVP.

In fact, when you look at the guys who win such a trophy year after year, you realize that it’s very often a guy at the end of his career, i.e. an older player, who wins it.

To see Desnoyers do it in his 17th season is a monstrous feat. You have to go back to Jonathan Drouin (2013) to see a guy win the playoff MVP title before his first year of eligibility for the NHL draft. Nothing less.

And clearly, he’s impressing everyone, including his coach Gardiner MacDougall. The latter, who has seen it snow in the hockey world, has been singing the praises of his young protégé.

And rightly so.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a player his age lead his team to the Gilles Courteau Trophy championship like that. – Gardiner MacDougall

And the good news is that the top prospect will have a chance to put his talent on the map at the Memorial Cup, where he’ll be the only top prospect in the 2025 NHL draft.

In a mock draft by The Athletic’s prospect experts, the Québécois was ranked fourth. Can he crack the top-3, like Beckett Sennecke in 2024?

The competition will be stiff at the tournament, as the Knights are still very strong and the Tigers are counting on Cayden Lindstrom and Gavin McKenna, who is a higher-profile prospect than Desnoyers… but for the 2026 draft.

I don’t know if Desnoyers’ time in the QMJHL will be his last (the club that drafts him could send him to the NCAA in 2025-2026 or even keep him in the NHL), but the Québécois will have the chance to make his name, now more than ever.

He’s done nothing to set teams back in the draft, and that should continue between now and June 1, the date of the Memorial Cup Final.

Remember that at the start of the season, when Desnoyers wasn’t necessarily expected to be a top-4 draft pick, the Habs had their eye on him. But now that the Canadiens have made the playoffs and Desnoyers is on the rise, it’s no longer possible to believe he’s coming to Montreal – barring a bombshell, of course.


overtime

– I still can’t believe it.

– Oh!

– Well.

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