Now that all the wheeling and dealing is done, we can get a clear sense of which QMJHL teams have the best chance to win it all this year.
There's a defined group of contenders, with the rest of the teams ranging from extreme longshots to darkhorses with a chance to win a round or two. The easiest way to draw a line between the two tiers is by the current overall standings. Anyone outside of the top five would need a minor miracle to get to the semifinals, let alone beyond.
These are the teams, in order, with the best odds to win the President Cup:
Chicoutimi Sagueneens: I should be clear here the Sags and Moncton Wildcats are more of a 1A and 1B. It's virtually impossible to say one team is more stacked than the other but I'm opening with Chicoutimi because of a slight edge in championship experience. And I really do emphasize the word slight.
The Saguneens made their first big move towards constructing a title contender a year ago when they built in Rafael Harvey-Pinard as a player to be named later in a trade with Rouyn-Noranda. Harvey-Pinard was the Huskies captain last year when they won the President Cup and Memorial Cup, and as much as Noah Dobson and Joel Teasdale led them in obvious ways, it was Harvey-Pinard who was their heartbeat.
Similarly, Felix Bibeau broke out as a clutch player for the Huskies last year so the Saguneens made him their second target. Heart and soul defender Patty Kyte and sniper Raphael Lavoie were two other players with tons of playoff experience with the Mooseheads, while Dawson Mercer is coming off a gold medal ride at the world juniors. Along with a growing core built through the draft, the Sagueneens have a well-rounded team with proven players in key roles.
Moncton Wildcats: The blueprint in New Brunswick was almost identical to the one used in Chicoutimi.
The Wildcats already had homegrown stars Jakob Pelletier, Jeremy McKenna, Alexander Khovanov and Jordan Spence when they decided to complement them with stars from other winning programs. They brought in goalie Olivier Rodrigue from Drummondville and centre Bo Groulx and defenceman Jared McIsaac from Halifax.
Rodrigue and McIsaac just won gold with Canada at the world juniors and Groulx and McIsaac are well known around Halifax for their roles in the Mooseheads runner-up finishes in the President Cup and Memorial Cup last year. Getting Baie-Comeau Drakkar captain Gabriel Fortier was another major injection of leadership and skill.
The one X factor for Moncton is the mysterious coaching change last month. The Wildcats parted ways with John Torchetti even as the team was red hot. They did well to plug in Dan Lacroix but the impact of that kind of upheaval is hard to measure with so little time left in the regular season.
Rimouski Oceanic: When you have the best player in junior hockey, you are automatically a team to beat.
World junior MVP and probably 2020 first overall draft pick Alexis Lafreniere can win games on his own and makes everyone around him better. A supporting cast that includes talent like Cedric Pare, Dmitry Zavgorodniy, Colten Ellis, Nicolas Guay, Andrew Coxhead, Isaac Belliveau, Walter Flower and Justin Bergeron should scare any playoff opponent.
Cape Breton Eagles: Hiding just under the radar is a very underrated Cape Breton team.
The Eagles opted not to get into the arms race with Chicoutimi, Moncton and Rimouski but made some shrewd additions that make them a dangerous sleeper.
Tyler Hinam, Shawn Element and Xavier Bouchard were the Eagles' three deadline acquisitions and all of them are character players who know how to produce and lead in playoff situations.
Mixing them in with a group of forwards led by Egor Sokolov, Mathias Laferriere, Ryan Francis, Derek Gentile and Shawn Boudrias, while also bolstering a blue line that already had Adam McCormick, Nathan Larose and Jarret Baker gives them the kind of depth and skill to match up with the other contenders. All it will take now is to rise to the occasion.
Sherbrooke Phoenix: There's a chance the Phoenix could have their cake and eat it too.
They're first in the overall standings but the real target year was always 2020-21 so there's no way to go wrong in Sherbrooke. With players like Samuel Poulin, Samuel Hlavaj, Bailey Peach, Patrick Guay, Xavier Parent, Taro Jentzch and others in place, the Phoenix are good enough to win now and later.
