Canadiens place center on waivers

The Montreal Canadiens have placed center Alex Barre-Boulet on waivers for assignment to the AHL. Boulet signed a one-year, two-way contract with Montreal on July 1 and made the team out of training camp. He’s since filled a fourth-line role for Montreal’s first two games of the season, though he failed to record a point and served as a healthy scratch on Saturday.

Barre-Boulet has played in the AHL in each of the last six seasons, kicking his career off on an undrafted free-agent deal with the Syracuse Crunch in 2018. He potted a dazzling 68 points, split evenly, in 74 games as an AHL rookie, quickly earning a confident top-six role. 

He continued his hot scoring through the 2019-20 season, netting 56 points in 60 games and earning the first NHL contract of his career. But Barre-Boulet wasn’t able to find the same production through appearances with Tampa Bay in 2020-21 and 2021-22, ultimately scoring just eight points in his first 29 NHL games.

The Kraken claimed Barre-Boulet from the Lightning early into the 2021-22 season but only iced him in two scoreless games before waiving him themselves, allowing Tampa to reclaim him. He was a Kraken for just 10 days and would proceed the vacation with his first point-per-game season in the AHL, netting 63 points in 58 games. 

That point-per-game scoring continued through 2022-23, earning Barre-Boulet the first extended NHL stay of his career last season. But he stayed in his rut, netting just nine points in 36 games. 

A deal with Montreal this summer was supposed to bring a change of scenery capable of sparking Barre-Boulet’s career — which seemed possible when he made the Canadiens roster out of camp – but instead, he finds himself on waivers for the sixth time in his career. He’s scored 302 points in 294 career AHL games and brings exciting upside to the AHL’s Laval Rocket, should he clear waivers.