While Alex Barre-Boulet cracked Montreal’s opening roster, he won’t be staying with the big club for long as the Habs announced on Sunday that they’ve placed the winger on waivers.
The Canadiens signed the 27-year-old on the opening day of free agency in July, inking him to a one-year, one-way contract worth the league minimum salary of $775,000. Even so, many felt he was likely ticketed to play in Laval.
However, Barre-Boulet had a strong preseason showing with a goal and two assists in four games, good for second on the Habs in scoring (behind Oliver Kapanen). With Joshua Roy having an underwhelming camp that saw him get cut plus Patrik Laine’s injury, Barre-Boulet was able to make the team and got into the first two games of the season before being made a healthy scratch on Saturday against Ottawa.
With Emil Heineman and Kapanen both faring well in their first couple of games of action this season and Michael Pezzetta still waiting to make his 2024-25 season debut, playing time would have been hard to come by for Barre-Boulet over the next little while. Accordingly, trying to slip him through waivers now makes some sense.
However, getting him through unclaimed isn’t a guarantee as he has twice been claimed off the wire before. Seattle grabbed him in 2021-22 while Tampa Bay got him back once the Kraken tried to send him down later on that year. Since then, the Lightning have gotten him through and the Habs will be hoping to do so this time.
If Barre-Boulet can get to Laval, he’d immediately become a key weapon offensively. Over parts of six AHL seasons, he has 302 points in 294 games and would give the Rocket a true veteran offensive threat which is something their roster doesn’t have at the moment. Montreal will find out at 2 PM ET on Monday if he’ll be off to Laval or off to a new NHL city.