The Montreal Canadiens have signed 27-year-old centre Cedric Paquette. Paquette played last season with the Ottawa Senators and the Carolina Hurricanes, scoring four goals and four assists on the year. The contract details are unknown at this time.
Just over an hour away from free agency opening, hearing David Savard, Chris Wideman (as @reporterchris reported) and Cedric Paquette are expected to become Montreal Canadiens.
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) July 28, 2021
Paquette Signs with Montreal
Paquette is a big-bodied depth centre who isn’t all that great offensively. He’s a good player defensively but isn’t the fastest when defending the rush. With that being said, Montreal picked up a good fourth-line centre in this signing. He’s able to play on the penalty kill and can throw his body around too and provide some grit to any line he plays on. A cup winner in 2020 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, he’s appeared in 424 NHL games. Through this time, the 2012 fourth-round pick has scored 51 goals and 42 assists for 93 career points. Paquette was acquired by the Senators in December of 2020 along with Braydon Coburn and a 2022 second-round pick. After only playing nine games for the Senators, Paquette was then traded in February to the Hurricanes in the Alex Galchenyuk trade that sent Ryan Dzingel back to the Senators.
What This Means for the Future
Montreal gets themselves a quality depth centre piece to add to their locker room. He won’t be scoring any hat tricks anytime soon, and he certainly won’t be winning a Selke trophy. However, the value in him comes from his hard-working style of play and his physicality as well. He threw 136 hits last season, as well as having 10 takeaways over his 47 games last year. He’ll also add a few seasons of playoff experience to a team that is looking to make the playoffs again. Overall the Canadiens are setting themselves up to make another run at Lord Stanley’s cup, and having Paquette on the team will help them bring them closer to that goal.
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