When I first got to thinking about the Eric Lavigne era, I didn’t have any obvious memories. The days of the PEI Rocket now almost seem like distant history. It’s a great little reminder of how lucky we are to have a well run club right now. There were a lot of very tough years for major junior hockey fans on PEI. I’m glad to say that I kind of forgotten how poorly the club was run for a few years before the transition to the local ownership group.
Eric Lavigne was the fourth coach in PEI Rocket history. Of course, Alain Vigneault was head coach for the first two seasons on PEI….from 03-05. After the 2004-05 NHL lockout ended, Randy Carlyle, who had been coaching the Manitoba Moose of the AHL found his way back to the NHL as the head coach in Anaheim. That vacancy in Winnipeg (AHL) was filled by AV and we were without a coach weeks before training camp and Yanick Jean was Savard’s new hire.
Jean was fired early in the 07-08 season and replaced with Guy Chouinard. Chouinard lasted two seasons and was fired at around the same time in 2009. Eric Lavigine was brought in as his replacement and coached the 09-10 and 10-11 seasons.
The 09-10 team should have been a stronger entry, but like most PEI Rocket clubs, underachieving was the theme of the team for most of the season. The team entered the season with newly acquired goaltender Francois Levesque (20 y/o) to platoon with incumbent Evan Mosher, who was in his 19 y/o season. Savard had hopes to contend that season and it soon was clear that Levesque was not the answer in goal. Marco Cousineau was an NHL drafted 20 y/o who was returned to junior hockey after NHL training camps. Savard went out and did deal to bring him in to start for us, but paid a steep price to do it.
Our big scorers that season included 20 y/o Samson Mahbod, who was a small but powerful forward we acquired from Drummondville. Benjamin Casavant was in his 18 y/o season after being drafted to Washington after an awesome 80 point 17 y/season. Casavant struggled and only put up 56 points. In a weird twist of events, Washington dropped him from their list before waiting the full two season they had to sign him… I’ve never seen that before or since.
Jarrad Struthers was a hard working, dependable 19 y/o forward who we brought in from Rouyn the previous trade deadline. We also had talented veterans like Chris Doyle and Joel Champagne, both of whom were 19.
On the blueline, Czech defender Adam Polasek was one of our Euros and Jordon Southorn was in his 19 y/o season. Southorn was NHL drafted but his 23 points was fewer than he scored at either 18 or 17. A couple of nice surprises on the blueline was the emergence of small defencemen JP Mathieu in his second season (18) and rookie Matt Hobbs (18) who came to the Q after considering NCAA. Jimmy Oligny was in his first season of a strong major junior career.
In addition to the players mentioned already, we had some younger players who had so-so results. This was Ben Duffy’s 17 y/o season where he underproduced compared to his rookie year. Jordan Escott had been a big NCAA lure for Savard, but he didn’t develop into the top flight player expected. A couple of former high picks…. Brandon Street and Brandon MacLean were moved out a Christmas and their major junior careers were basically done at 18.
This was Josh Currie’s rookie year and he was a hardnosed, hard working guy who played his way onto the team.
The ingredients were there for a strong team, but the club just underachieved badly. There was a massive arms race in the Atlantic division that year. Both Moncton and Saint John were awesome and Cape Breton tried unsuccessfully to keep pace. Even though Savard went shopping for Cousineau in October, he ended up dealing Cousineau at Christmas to Saint John. Champagne and Doyle were part of a big package dealt to Victoriaville at Christmas with a lot of futures attached. The team kind of went into a retool mode and did a small sell at the trade period.
The guys brought in at Christmas… Michael Stinziani, Jonathan Bonneau, Christopher Guay, Derek Famulare… were kind of just fillers…ok players who really hadn’t emerged as strong players in their previous stops. Dylan Capstick was also a young blueliner that was brought in from Val-d’Or who had potential, but never really emerged as a top blueliner.
The club actually fared out not too badly in the overall standings, finishing with 78 points in 8th overall. But back then the playoff matchups were by division and we were doomed to meeting Saint John in the first round. The Sea Dogs went to the Presidents Cup final and lost to Moncton …. a series between two great teams.
I went to the playoff opening games in Saint John. We were smoked pretty good in game one by the powerful Sea Dogs. My wife and I were staying with friends in Fredericton and went down to game one on Friday night. We were planning to head back to PEI on Saturday afternoon and decided on a whim to head down to SJ for game two. My cousin was over to both games and had a connection with someone else from PEI who had a private box at Harbour Station through his work. So we ended up watching game two from the private box and the upstart Rocket pulled out a comeback win on a strong performance from Casavant. Back in Charlottetown for games 3 and 4, Saint John put us away and that was it.
So 09-10 was a weird season in that we had a veteran team, but Savard got intimidated by the market and ended up selling small….. but Lavigne coached the team to a solid second half finish… could things be looking up for the 10-11 season. We PEI Rocket fans always hoped.
Selling Doyle and Champagne to Victoriaville netted a big haul. There were a number of picks that came back and we had three selection in the first round of the 2010 draft and we picked Victor Provencher, Maxime Lagage, and Louick Marcotte. Provencher and Lagace were both 17 and a little more ready to step in and play. The player returns from Victoriaville included top Euro Andrej Nestrasil, who was a great player, and 20 y/o PEI native Travis McIsaac.
Savard put his chips in again this season. Duffy got back on track and had a strong 18 y/o season. Casavant got traded to Shawinigan in the off season for Chicago first rounder Philippe Paradis. Both guys were 19, but Paradis was a for sure bet to play pro at 20 whereas Casavant was likely back at 20 (and he eventually did). Samuel Morneau was picked up after not catching on in the pros at 20, much like Cousineau the previous year.
There was lots of firepower that year, but I just don’t think the defence was up to snuff. We brought in a couple of decent defencemen in the offseason…. Jean-Laurence Beauchemin and Marc-Andre Levesque… but both guys were more 4-5-6 blueliners. JP Mathieu would have been a stud, but he was the future in the deal with Drummondville that fetched Cousineau the previous year. Giving up Mathieu really hurt and was a big mistake by Savard. Polasek and Hobbs were back and Oligny had a big more responsibility at 17.
But Savard went shopping for blueliners at the trade period, flipping out Beauchemin, but bringing in Jean-Sebastien Fournier from Cape Breton and Brad Yetman from Rouyn, who was just starting to have concussion trouble. But the blueline still lacked that stud and we really weren’t even close to strong enough on the back end.
Up front, McIsaac unfortunately never really emerged as an offensive stud. He had 31 points at 20 after 57 the previous season at 19. We added a couple of forwards at the trade deadline… smaller and speedy Alex Noel… who was a lot like the guys we acquired the year before (i.e. Bonneau, Stinziani) and we got a deal on hard nosed forward Olivier Croteau from Gatineau who was a very tough forward.
Another part of the Victoriaville trade was the inclusion of younger forward Michael Ortika who was a rookie with us at 17. He had a promising start to his Q career, but quit hockey altogether after that season.
In goal, Evan Mosher was in his 20 y/o season. He was the work horse and Lagace was the emerging newcomer in goal.
We finished a disappointing 10th overall with 75 points and drew 7th place Shawinigan in round 1 (no divisional playoffs this year). So it’s bit noteworthy that in 09-10, we sold and still ended up with almost 80 points and were in the top 8, but the following season we did some buying but ended up with only 75 points and landed in 10th overall.
Shawinigan dispatched us in 5 games and I remember little of that playoff. I was in Dominican that spring and I don’t remember if I actually got to any of the playoff games. I think they hammered us.
These two seasons, though, were a great capture of the existence of the PEI Rocket…. Very middling and not really able to really get going due to inadequate management and bad luck.
Lavigne quit as head coach after the 10-11 season and hasn’t worked in hockey since then.
Gordie Dwyer came in as coach for 11-12. It was a tough season as we went completely into rebuild mode and missed the playoffs. But Gordie did a great job of bring a hard working identity to the team. The Rocket were much improved in 12-13 but still bowed out in round 1 to a tough Val-d’Or opponent. But after that series, the Savard family was done with Charlottetown and the team went up for sale.
The stories of the sale and the emergence of the Charlottetown Islanders can be another story for another time.
So it took some thinking about what went on during the Lavigne years. I was a STH back then and really followed the team closely (no kids back then). There were lots of fun players to watch, but it was a couple of very mediocre years that we’re talking about.
First off....my memory is terrible......but I don't remember a lot....if any..... from the Eric Lavigne reign.
Does anyone?
