Man of the week: Cedric Paquette
KHL.ru continues its weekly column ‘Man of the Week’ with an overview on Cedric Paquette’s career. The Dinamo Minsk’s newly signed center is having an impact right now for the Belarusian franchise.
It hasn’t been much that Cedric Paquette started adapting to his new league. And on Monday, the Canadian forward scored a double for Minsk – including the OT GWG for a key victory for the Belarusians in nothing less than Kazan. In the middle stanza, he got full advantage of a mistake by Ak Bars’ Kirill Petrov to fly toward Timur Bilyalov and beat him top shelf for a highlight-reel shorthanded goal. In OT, after Alex Radulov’s 2-2 tally with fewer than ten minutes to go, Paquette converted a fantastic play by Dinamo’s youngster Vladimir Alistrov to win the game for the Minsk side.
However, his contribution to Dinamo’s success doesn’t end with goals – he’s leading all his team’s forwards with a plus-three rating and trails only Alexei Emelin in hits. He’s also sporting an 87.5% of successful passes, once again good enough for the team’s lead. Dinamo Minsk is currently the fifth seed in the Western Conference and is tied on top of the league with Torpedo with 20 scored goals.
Early years
Cedric Paquette was born on Aug 13, 1993, in Gaspé, a town in Eastern Quebec some 400 miles northeast of Quebec City. Paquette started his path to pro hockey in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) with the Montreal Juniors and Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, scoring 131 (58+73) points in the league in 130 games played, with 193 PIMs. Despite his success in the QMJHL, Paquette never played internationally for Team Canada. In between his excellent career in the juniors, he was drafted 101st overall at the 2012 NHL Entry Draft by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Move to the NHL
Paquette was signed by the Lightning to an entry-level contract in the 2013 offseason, and started being a full-time NHL player in the next year, as he played 64 games with Tampa Bay in 2014-2015. Interestingly enough, Paquette posted that year his career-high, producing 19 (12+7) points for the Florida-based franchise. The Quebec native forward accumulated a huge experience in playoff games, having played more than 90 elimination stage contests with the Lightning.
Stanley Cup triumph
The forward appeared in more than 500 NHL games, mostly with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The pinnacle of his career was the 2020 Stanley Cup triumph. That year, Paquette lined up for 25 postseason games with the Lighting, and had his name engraved on the cup. Moreover, during his tenure with Tampa Bay, the franchise also drafted his cousin, Christopher, in 2016, who is however yet to play at the pro level. Paquette’s gritty and hard-nosed play has been very valuable for the Lightning, and celebrated his triumph eating shrimp poutine directly from the cup.
However, after seven seasons and several deep playoffs runs with the Lightning, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators in December 2020. After a short stint back in Canada, he was consequently traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. For the next season, he signed a one-year deal with the Montreal Canadiens, which will reveal to be his last in the NHL – a season that he split between the Habs and the Laval Rockets of the AHL.
Move to the KHL
As a free agent from the Canadiens, Paquette decided to move overseas and pursue a career in Europe. On Aug 16, 2022, Dinamo Minsk announced to have signed the Canadian import to a one-year contract. In the Belarusian capital, Paquette found some familiar faces – he played with Ryan Spooner and Mark Barberio with the Lightning, and spent a season in the AHL with the Syracuse Crunch alongside with domestic defenseman Dmitry Korobov.
“I want to show my best qualities and do everything for the team to win,” Paquette said after signing with Dinamo. “I set the highest goals for myself. I am ready to help both in attack and defense, go on the power play and penalty killing, do what the coaches instruct me to do. I’ve been told that Minsk has the best fans in the league. It will be nice to play in such an arena with incredible support. We will do everything to please them and win the cup!”
If Dinamo and Paquette keep on playing like this, getting to the playoffs shouldn’t be a problem. And then, everything will be up on the team.
