PHOTO: Bildbyrån + TT Nyhetsbyrån
Jonas Johansson shocked everyone and left without playing a single SHL game.
Now Färjestad is acting immediately and has already completed the replacement.
And it will once again be an NHL-qualified goalkeeper who is recruited.
It was last week that the big shock news came for Färjestad. The new acquisition and the prestige acquisition Jonas Johansson broke the contract and left the team without having played a single SHL game.
Färjestad recruits
The goalkeeper instead wanted to give the NHL another chance and therefore FBK was forced to search for a new goalkeeper. But it didn’t take very long and now the SHL club acts immediately by bringing in the replacement immediately.
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Today it became clear that the new goalkeeper for Värmland is the Canadian Max Lagacé. The 30-year-old has played in the farm league AHL all of last season and comes closest from the Syracuse Crunch.
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20 NHL games
But Lagacé is also NHL-qualified and can show off 20 games in the world’s best hockey league for the teams Vegas Golden Knights, Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning. Now he will form a goalkeeper pair with a youngster Carl Lindbom in FBK.
– Max is in the same profile we have been applying for all along. A guy who has been around a bit longer, as a slightly more experienced goalkeeper as a colleague of Carl. Max has just been out of the NHL for a number of seasons and got to play a few games in the league. So the quality is clearly there, says the sports director Richard Wallin in a press release.
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The move to Sweden and Karlstad will actually be the very first time in his career that Max Lagacé leaving North America for games in Europe. An old FBK acquaintance had a role in why it became Färjestad, namely Remi Elie who is a good friend of the goalkeeper.
– I have talked a lot with Remi Elie, who played with you last season. He loved the place and had only good things to say about everything and everyone around the team, says the new acquisition in his first statement.
– I have thought for a long time that it would be fun to play in Europe. I have played with many Swedish players over the years and somehow it has always been the case that I hang out with them.
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Färjestad has signed a two-year contract with Lagacé and sees him as an important piece of the puzzle for the upcoming SHL season when they aim high.
– We see Max as a person who is still hungry to develop and wants to try to win things together with us, says sports manager Wallin.
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