The Monday morning after former Ducks Freddie Andersen and Nicolas Deslauriers raised the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Panthers, one of their current prospects added a significant piece of hardware to his already formidable collection.
Forward Maxim Massé won the David Branch Player of the Year Award, which honors the top competitor in all of Canadian junior hockey.
Massé, 20, might need to invest in a bigger trophy case after already capturing the Jean Believeau Trophy as the top scorer in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League and the Michel Brière Trophy as the QMJHL’s MVP. Along with the Western and Ontario hockey leagues, the “Q” makes up the broader Canadian Hockey League system, which is considered the top junior circuit on earth.
After winning the QMJHL title, the Gilles-Courteau Trophy, Massé and the Chicoutimi Saguenéens qualified for the Memorial Cup, a nationwide junior championship that was won by the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers.
The 6-foot-3 Massé is only the second Chicoutimi player to garner CHL Player of the Year honors and the first in nearly a quarter-century since Pierre-Marc Bouchard did so in 2002. He notched 51 goals and 51 assists, one of just two 50-goal scorers and four 100-point producers in the CHL. He was the only 50/50 club member in all of Canada this season before adding 24 more points in 20 playoff matches.
In his draft year, 2023-24, he won gold with Canada at both the Under-18 World Junior Championships and the Gretzky-Hlinka Cup, in addition to receiving the Mike Bossy Trophy as the QMJHL’s best professional prospect.
He was previously honored as the top rookie in both the QMJHL and the entire CHL in 2022-23. He became a third-round draft pick of the Ducks a year later, but his feat of winning both the CHL’s Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year accolades put him in the company of No. 1 overall picks almost exclusively.
The other players to accomplish both feats were Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, Alexis Lafrenière, Gavin McKenna and Alex DeBrincat. DeBrincat was a second-rounder for the Chicago Blackhawks while Crosby, Tavares and Lafrenière were all top selections in their respective drafts, as McKenna will be later this month.
Like McKenna, Massé will chart a course that takes him from the CHL to the NCAA, a path that has been open to prospects for only one season. Massé will take his talents to the University of Massachusetts this fall.