Simon Bourque, an erstwhile Canadiens draft pick and farmhand, who was a throw-in on the Steve Mason and Joel Armia trade, sent to the Jets to relieve the Canadiens of a contract on their books, has been placed on Unconditional Waivers by Winnipeg, a prelude to having his Entry Level Contract bought out.
He was drafted in the sixth round in the 2015 Draft, one of an impressive crop of LHJMQ defencemen predicted to be picked that season. Jakub Zboril and Thomas Chabot were in their own first-round tier according to the draft touts, followed by Jérémy Roy expected to go late in the first or early in the second, and then came the trio of Nicolas Meloche, Guillaume Brisebois and late-riser Jérémy Lauzon. Beyond them, Simon was generally seen as the next-best LHJMQ defenceman prospect, with some hype that he might be just as good as the Meloche-Brisebois-Lauzon trio, that he might go as early as the third or fourth round.
So nabbing him in the sixth round was a positive I thought, a local boy obtained on the cheap, a 'value' pick. He didn't quite make the .6 pts/game threshold during his draft year, the level that seems to be the bar below which a d-man prospect from the CHL has no chance of an NHL career, but again, we'd invested a pick in the mere sixth round, so I was ready to indulge the longshot.
I still soured a little as he played two more steady but unspectacular LHJMQ seasons, which didn't bode well for a NHL career. And I functionally wrote him off when he had an unspectacular Memorial Cup, rarely catching the eye or dominating play for the Sea Dogs as a 19-year-old. His teammate Thomas Chabot, two draft classes younger, skated circles around him in terms of his play.
There was talk that the Canadiens might ask him to play a further season as a 20-year-old in the LHJMQ, that the AHL might be too big a step for him, and that's usually the death knell for a prospect, having that 20-year-old season, but there are exceptions, Micheal Ferland being one off the top of my head.
In hindsight, he might have been better served doing that rather than what eventually happened, a very poor season as a Laval Rocket during which he was regularly a healthy-scratch early on, until injuries and callups piled up, and through attrition, he got a regular role in the AHL. He finished the season with no goals and 3 assists in 46 games played.
So like William Bitten, Simon was a player who I hadn't given up on exactly, since we held his rights anyway, but who I mentally didn't include in my future projections. When he was flipped to the Jets, it was clear to me that Marc Bergevin asked that they take a contract off his hands, like when he dealt Stéfan Fournier, and Jack Nevins. They were sent away to keep the organization under the 50-contracts limit.
It'll be interesting to see if Simon asked for his release because he has other designs, like a career in Europe, or if it's the Jets who are showing him the door. Nothing against the guy, he seemed like a nice kid, but he's one of those many, many players who have some promise as a 17-year-old but who don't progress to an NHL job.
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