GALCHENYUK HAS OBVIOUS TALENT, BUT NOBODY SEEMS TO WANT HIM
The unravelling of Alex Galchenyuk's career has been a winding road of promise, belief, disappointment, and failure.
The kid who scored 30 goals as a 22-year-old in Montreal, the third pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, turned 27 the other day and has fallen so hard and so far from the mainstream that he has been owned by four different NHL teams in the past six months, none of which have had anything resembling success with the forward.
In a hockey deal, he was first traded in from Montreal to Arizona, in exchange for Max Domi. That was in June of 2018. One year later, the Coyotes had to throw in his salary to complete a trade with Pittsburgh for Phil Kessel.
He lasted less than a season with the Penguins.
Galchenyuk was then traded to Minnesota, again as a salary-fit to balance off the deal that sent Jason Zucker to the Penguins in exchange for a first-round draft pick. He played just 18 games for the Wild, including those in the Edmonton bubble, before general manager Bill Guerin determined he had no interest in maintaining the player.
And then came this past off-season, where he signed as a free agent with the Ottawa Senators, another fresh start with a rebuilding team and was tossed aside after just eight games, sent to Carolina in a deal that brought Ryan Dzingel back to the Sens.
He never did play a game for Carolina: Two days after acquiring him along with Cedric Paquette, they sent Galchenyuk to Toronto in exchange for a couple of non-prospects, Egor Korshkov and David Warsofsky.
He has yet to dress for a game with the rather injured Leafs.
To recap, that's seven teams for Galchenyuk in the past four seasons.
So how did all this happen, how has Galchenyuk fallen so hard, so young, so fast?
Postmedia reached out to someone in management from each of Galchenyuk's previous teams and came away with a variety of answers, all of them unattributed for obvious reasons, not all of them connected.
There were, apparently, lifestyle issues in Montreal. He got in with the wrong group of players, I was told. “It's not like he's the first one to have that problem, especially in Montreal,” said a Habs voice. “He was a really good kid, who gave us no trouble. Good attitude, good worker.
“What happened, It was something of a snowball effect, really. You see it with goal scorers sometimes. They're momentum guys. They identify with being a goal scorer. Once they stop scoring, their whole game shatters. I think that happened in Montreal. He could only play one game, one way and when that one wasn't working, he didn't have anything else to do.”
In Arizona, Galchenyuk asked to play centre. That was his position of choice. The Coyotes started him there. It didn't last long.
“I know peewee players that had a better understanding of defensive zone positioning,” said a former Coyote. “He moved to the wing, he didn't have a lot of foot speed, he didn't have a lot of game awareness.
“Some players are like Swiss army knives. They can play a lot of different games, different styles. Alex was one-dimensional, with a big shot. He wanted to slow the game down. Only a special few can do that in today's NHL. Sometimes I think he listened to his dad more than he listened to us.”
The Penguins didn't really want Galchenyuk. They wanted Kessel gone and wanted young defenceman Pierre-olivier Joseph. Galchenyuk was the salary dump.
Some thought Pittsburgh was the perfect fit for him. If only he could combine that big shot with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin? Imagine how many goals he would score?
“He couldn't play our system,” said a longtime Penguins employee.
“We were a skating team, a go-go team, a transition team. He wants to slow the game down, like half-court offence in basketball, not go north-south all the time.
“I will say this about him, he was a really good guy. He wasn't any trouble for us at all. He puts too much pressure on himself and I think maybe his family does too. And he's lacking self-confidence right now. He's a guy who cares, who wants to do well. I liked him personally. I just didn't like his game.”
Since Pittsburgh, Galchenyuk has become more and more irrelevant in the NHL. He went to Minnesota, played a few decent games for the Wild and that was it.
As a free agent, he signed with Ottawa in late October. Before the Sens signed him, coach D.J. Smith called his friend Rick Tocchet in Arizona to talk about Galchenyuk. Tocchet thought he would be a good fit for Smith and the Sens. Galchenyuk lasted just eight games with the Senators. He averaged less than 10 minutes a game for Ottawa, scoring once.
“His speed is great, his shot is great, we found nothing wrong with his attitude,” said a Sens voice. “And it wasn't effort either. His attitude was great, he worked really hard for us. But his hockey sense is a problem. He's a shooter and his shot is unbelievable. We just found he didn't work with what we were trying to accomplish. It wasn't that he didn't fit in. It's that he didn't fit in on the ice with what we needed him to do.”
Ten days ago, the Senators traded Galchenyuk to Carolina, really another salary throw-in for a team that didn't want him. Two days after that, the Hurricanes sent him to the Leafs.
Coach Sheldon Keefe said Tuesday there is no time frame for Galchenyuk with the Leafs. He will play for the Leafs. For how long and in what capacity, nobody really knows.
His hockey sense is a problem. He's a shooter and his shot is unbelievable. We just found he didn't work with what we were trying to accomplish.