Saturday, January 14, 2017

Cédrick Desjardins Two Autographed Pictures

Cédrick Desjardins' NHL statistics look very good as a whole, what with a career 2.42 GAA and .919 save percentage, but the last two times the Tampa Bay Lightning gave him ice time, his numbers took a bit of a hit:
from Hockey Reference
On a team that employed the likes of Vezina nominee Ben Bishop, Latvian Olympic hero Kristers Gudlevskis and super-prospect Andrei Vasilevskiy, there was no way he was going to be given another chance after that.

Following his second stint with the Bolts, which was itself linked with two stints within the Montréal Canadiens organization, he signed two-way contracts with the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings organizations, but marred by injuries was unable to sign with an NHL-affiliated team for the current season, which is why he's now playing with the LNAH's Jonquière Marquis, sharing the net with another former Habs prospect, Loïc Lacasse.

His save percentage might look low with the Marquis at 0.893, but his record stands at 6-1-1 in 8 games; Lacasse is showing an .898 save percentage - good for third in the league - with a 12-3-1 record.

The Marquis have used a ton of current and former NHL prospects this season, including Calgary Flames draft pick Hugo Carpentier, Slovakian star Juraj Kolnik, Washington Capitals pick Benoit Gratton, Jean-Simon Allard (Buffalo Sabres), Stefan Chaput (Carolina Hurricanes, Boston Bruins), Jonathan Paiement (Rangers), Samuel Groulx (San Jose Sharks), Jean-Michel Bolduc (Minnesota Wild), Gabryel Paquin-Boudreau (Sharks, Nashville Predators), and Maxime Sauvé (Bruins). That's a lot of talent for a league considered to be "semi-pro"...

Not many goalies have been able to be relegated down to the LNAH and make their way back to the NHL, but it's not impossible; Sébastien Charpentier comes to mind as one, perhaps Desjardins will be able to as well.

In the meantime, here's a look back at what he looked like in Tampa, first with the regular-issue white (away) uniform, which perhaps would look NHL-worthy if it didn't have the TAMPA BAY typefont:
And here he is wearing the Bolts' blue (home) uniform:
It shows him in his final NHL game, February 6th, 2014, post-fight with the Toronto Maple Leafs' Jonathan Bernier (18:17 of the third period), after teammate J.T. Brown had run into Bernier in the final throes of a 4-1 loss.

Both 4x6 pictures were signed in person in blue sharpie, in April that year, when he faced the Hamilton Bulldogs in a road game (I think the Bulldogs, with Dustin Tokarski in net, lost 3-1 that night). Ironically, the Habs - the Bulldogs' head team - had acquired Tokarski in exchange for Desjardins...

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