Leafs hire Patrick Charbonneau out of QMJHL
By Ryan Fancey
7 years ago
The sleeping giant has awoken. The Leafs are making moves again, and have finally ended the dog days of summer for hockey news.
…Nah, actually they just hired a scout out of junior hockey. But at this point we’ll take it.
It appears Toronto has gone out and made an addition to their amateur scouting staff, bringing aboard Patrick Charbonneau from the QMJHL.
It’s a minor piece of news, but Charbonneau has a bit of name recognition, serving as a general manager in junior since 2012. Leaving his post as Director of Central Scouting for the QMJHL in 2012, he was picked to head up the front office for the then-expansion Sherbrooke Phoenix and turned them into a playoff club within their first year (albeit with a poor record). His time with the team eventually run its course last December, but he was then hired just a couple months ago by the Rimouski Oceanic to join their management team as assistant GM. News of his hire with the Leafs came by way of the Oceanic’s website (h/t MLHS).
Via Oceanic.qc.ca (by way of rough Google translation):
But now Patrick Charbonneau, the recent deputy director in charge of development of Ontario and US components in the team for an entire region takes off also to other lands as he just accepted a professional recruiter station at the Toronto Maple Leafs
It’s not clear yet what Charbonneau’s focus with Toronto will be. With the Leafs’ recent departure of Wes Clark to the Panthers as an Ontario scout, perhaps Charbonneau will pick up some of those consulting duties. If the Oceanic brought him aboard for his knowledge of Ontario and U.S.-born players, maybe that’s along the lines of what the Leafs have in mind as well.
Over the four seasons Charbonneau spent in Sherbrooke, the Phoenix made the playoffs three times but never made it out of the first round, and only had a winning regular season record one time. It’s also worth noting that Sherbrooke is partially owned by Stephane Robidas, who the Leafs have essentially put out to pasture.
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