Joshua Roy Wants an NHL Job Next Season, With or Without the Canadiens – The Hockey Writers – Montreal Canadiens

At his end-of-season media availability, Joshua Roy delivered the clearest statement of his professional career: he wants to play in the NHL next season, and it doesn’t have to be in Montreal. The quote, amplified by RDS and widely shared across hockey social media, was not reckless or inflammatory. It was honest. And for an organization still navigating one of the most talent-rich rebuilds in recent memory, Roy’s candour raises a legitimate and timely question: Does he have a future with the Montreal Canadiens, or is this the beginning of the end of his time in bleu-blanc-rouge?

A Career Defined by Flashes and Frustration

Roy’s story has never been short on intrigue. Selected 150th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft after dominating the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) with 119 points in 66 games for the Sherbrooke Phoenix, the 22-year-old from Saint-Georges-de-Beauce arrived in the Canadiens’ system carrying both enormous upside and legitimate questions. He won back-to-back gold medals with Team Canada at the World Juniors in 2022 and 2023, and his 92 career American Hockey League (AHL) games show a prolific offensive producer who has logged 36 goals and 35 assists with the Laval Rocket.

The problem has never been his ceiling. It has been the floor. At the NHL level, Roy has dressed for 38 games across three seasons, collecting just 11 points. More telling than the numbers, though, is the pattern: multiple recalls followed by quiet, low-impact stints and quick returns to Laval. In 2025-26, he played three games for the Canadiens, registered no points, and was eventually loaned back to Laval in late November. The coaching staff simply never trusted him with enough rope to establish himself.

What the Canadiens’ Logjam Actually Looks Like

Part of Roy’s challenge has nothing to do with his game. Montreal’s forward group is legitimately stacked with young talent, and the organization has continued to layer in new pieces. Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield anchor the top six. Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov project as core fixtures. Behind them, Oliver Kapanen and Owen Beck bring defensive reliability and penalty-killing value that head coach Martin St. Louis prizes. Then there is Zachary Bolduc, acquired from the Blues for Logan Mailloux, a 22-year-old first-rounder who profiles as exactly the kind of player Roy has been trying to become.

Even the players who stayed ahead of Roy on the depth chart in 2025-26 said something telling. Jared Davidson, still raw and unpolished offensively, held a roster spot. Florian Xhekaj, a physical presence with minimal offensive contribution, did too. As THW’s William Bourget noted in a previous article, the fact that Roy kept losing out to those players suggests the coaching staff is prioritizing attributes such as physicality, defensive structure, and energy that Roy does not bring in sufficient quantities to separate himself in a bottom-six competition. Roy was notably absent from the Canadiens’ Black Aces as the team continues its playoff run.

The July 1 Question

Roy becomes a restricted free agent (RFA) on July 1. His current contract carries a cap hit of $835,000 and expires at the end of this season. Under the RFA rules, the Canadiens hold his rights; they can issue a qualifying offer and retain him, or let him walk and receive nothing. What Roy’s comments suggest is that if Montreal qualifies him but does not provide a genuine opportunity to compete for a roster spot, he may not simply accept another year of AHL hockey without a real shot.

That is a fair position. At 22 – he turns 23 in August – Roy is not a prospect anymore in the traditional sense. He has nearly 40 games of NHL experience and has been one of the AHL’s more productive wingers over the past three seasons. The window in which a player accepts assignment to the minors as part of the “development process” has a natural expiry. Roy appears to understand that, even if he is too polished in his media delivery to say it bluntly.

Could a Trade Make Sense?

The idea of trading Roy has been floated in various corners of Canadiens coverage throughout the season, and it is worth taking seriously now that he has signaled openness to playing elsewhere. Montreal has surplus offensive depth at the forward position. A team in need of an AHL-tested winger with offensive instincts and a prior NHL track record could reasonably see value in Roy. The Canadiens, in return, could target a prospect with a different profile: a defensive forward or a defenceman or simply create roster flexibility for the 2026-27 campaign.

A trade would not be an indictment of Roy’s ability. It would reflect organizational arithmetic. As DansLesCoulisses reported, there is genuine uncertainty about whether there is even a spot for Roy in Montreal next season, given the wave of young forwards either already established or on the cusp of arriving. That is not a dig at Roy; it is simply the reality of what a successful rebuild looks like when the talent pool runs deep.

What Roy Needs to Do This Offseason

If Roy wants to make this decision difficult for general manager (GM) Kent Hughes, there is one clear path: train relentlessly, arrive at camp in the best shape of his career, and play with desperation when given opportunities in the preseason. He has done versions of this before; he reportedly shed 15 pounds while adding lower-body strength ahead of the 2025-26 season, but the results on the ice did not follow through at the NHL level.

Roy is not without tools. His hockey sense is genuine, his offensive instincts in the AHL have been repeatedly validated, and his compete level in Laval has generally been excellent. The issue is translating those qualities to a harder, faster game where the margin for error on defence is unforgiving. That gap has persisted long enough that it can no longer be explained away by circumstances or youth.

The Bottom Line

Roy’s end-of-season declaration was not a threat; it was a clarification. He wants to play in the NHL. He has always wanted to play in the NHL. What has changed is the subtext: he is no longer willing to assume that a path exists for him in Montreal simply because he is under contract with the Canadiens. That is a mature and legitimate stance for a player entering what feels like a genuine career crossroads.

Whether the Canadiens retain him, trade him, or qualify and let the summer play out, the next 60 days will go a long way toward defining the next chapter of Roy’s career. One way or another, 2026-27 figures to look very different from what has come before.