While the Carolina Hurricanes season ended in disappointment, the team had a lot to be proud of. Now in the offseason, tough decisions will be made, and management will work to put the team in a place to succeed next season. In the meantime, we will take a look back at individual players’ seasons and see how they did. For the Carolina Hurricanes offseason grades, today we look at Maxime Lajoie.
Carolina Hurricanes Offseason Grade: Maxime Lajoie
Maxime Lajoie is a 25-year-old, left-handed depth defenceman. The Ottawa Senators drafted Lajoie in the fifth round of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. After a few years with Ottawa, the Hurricanes acquired Lajoie for forward Clark Bishop. Lajoie’s only consistent NHL season came with the Senators in 2018-19 when he played 56 games. Otherwise, Lajoie has mostly been a steady AHL defenceman and a call-up NHL option.
Lajoie is a defensive defenceman who is typically not afraid to block shots. Defensively, he does not look too out of place in his brief NHL call-ups. He will not necessarily put up a ton of points but can step into a bottom-pairing role when injuries or other vacancies arise during the season.
Maxime Lajoie’s Regular Season
This season, Lajoie was called up briefly and played in three games with 23 minutes of ice time for the Hurricanes. Most of his season was spent as the captain of the Chicago Wolves in the AHL. He did not record any points during that NHL stint but was fairly reliable defensively. He played alongside previous Wolves teammate Jalen Chatfield.
While he wouldn’t replace the other defencemen Carolina has on the depth chart if available such as Calvin de Haan, his defensive first style did compliment Chatfield’s fast skating and tendency to jump in the play. Together, Lajoie and Chatfield had no goals for and no goals against. They also had a 0.6 expected goals for with only a 0.7 expected goals against. Overall, Lajoie was fairly unnoticeable in his short stint with Carolina this season.
The Verdict
For a guy in his role, Lajoie being fairly unnoticeable isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, he didn’t do anything super special, but he also was not a liability. He held his own and provided the team with a depth defenceman in a very limited role. This is fairly in line with expectations of Lajoie this season. It’s never a bad thing to have guys like that in the organization. Guys that play well in the AHL and can provide depth when needed.
Lajoie is 25 years old so it is possible he could continue to progress. But most likely, he will sort of stay where he is in a depth role. He is a restricted free agent after this season with arbitration rights. The price to keep Lajoie around should be fairly low so don’t be surprised to see Carolina keep him on board for depth and to assist whoever they affiliate with in the AHL considering their affiliation agreement with Chicago expired (if they do at all). This Carolina Hurricanes offseason grade may not really be fair considering the limited NHL time by Lajoie, but we took a look regardless. Lajoie’s play was pretty much as was expected.
Grade: C
Check out the last Carolina Hurricanes offseason grades article!
Main Photo: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
