Back in 2012, the Montreal Canadiens had the third-overall
pick at the draft. When the opportunity to draft center Alex Galchenyuk came
around, the organization didn’t hesitate to pounce even though the 6-foot-1
American had missed a lot of games because of a knee injury. The Habs had big
hopes for the centerman, and for a while, it seemed like the selection would pay
off.
Over the course of his first four seasons, Galchenyuk
steadily improved, putting up 56 points in 82 games in his fourth campaign. However,
the following year, his production declined. In his last three seasons with the
Canadiens, he never got more than 51 points.
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According to Pat Hickey, who covered the Canadiens for
decades, Galchenyuk’s most significant problem in Montreal was his father, as
he would discuss with his son after every game, analysing the stats and telling
him that the coaching staff wasn’t using him enough.
Eventually, the Canadiens had enough and traded him to the
Arizona Coyotes for Max Domi. He would only remain in Arizona for one season
and then had stints with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Minnesota Wild, the
Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Coyotes (once more), and the
Colorado Avalanche.
After he crashed his car into a sign in Scottsdale, Arizona,
the forward threatened the police officers who arrived on the scene, and the
incident led to the Coyotes terminating his contract. After that, he signed a
league-minimum two-way deal with the Avalanche but spent most of his season in
the AHL in 2022-23 before deciding to head to the KHL, where he has spent the
last two seasons.
Last year, in his first campaign with Khabarovsk Amur, he
put up 38 points in 59 games. The team struggled and even suffered five
straight shutout losses, with a combined score of 0-21, which led to their
coach, Andrei Martemyanov, being fired. However, his replacement, Viktor
Kostyuchenok, couldn’t right the ship, and the organization appointed a new
coach this summer: Alexander Galchenyuk Sr.
The new coach wasted no time in making his son the team’s
captain. It will be interesting to see if the Galchenyuk pair can lead Amur to
a better finish than last year, when they were second to last in the Eastern
Conference.
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