Swisshabs.ch posted a French-language article about Red Wings free agent signing Theo Rochette, a 24-year-old Swiss/Canadian center who posted 43 points (22 goals and 21 assists) in 43 games played for Lausanne HC of the Swiss National League last season.
The article is uncredited, but its author does include one encouraging quote from Rochette, whose 5’11,” 172-pound frame may or may not take some readjusting to the North American game (as Rochette captained the Quebec Remparts for two of his four QMJHL seasons).
Here’s a rough translation thereof:
Theo Rochette will take time to win in the NHL
After three seasons with Lausanne HC, Theo Rochette is preparing to take on the biggest challenge of his young career. At 24, the forward will try to secure a place on the Detroit Red Wings team, after finally earning the opportunity he expected to join the NHL. And by this, going from the most popular player on his team to a nobody, and probably, for the moment, to give up a nice sum to fall back to an annual salary of $82,500 in AHL, a course that so many others before him have tried, and sometimes succeeded.
The Lausanne alumnus also takes as an example Pius Suter, who also left at the age of 24, and who has a more than honorable career in the best league in the world. This is from an interview to be found on Sunday moring.
If the player has been able to count on much internal advice to prepare for his arrival in North America, for example, Austin Czarnik, Cory Emmerton or Geoff Ward, the last player probably having given [Rochette] the necessary boost to convince the Red Wings, this journalist does not fail to remind Rochette that physical play, his Achilles heel, will be quite different. But the player has prepared himself physically by practicing boxing during the summer, even if he obviously does not intend to make fights a specialty.
Above all, Rochette does not want to consider an immediate return to Lausanne in the case of not making the roster on Detroit. Under contract with LHC until 2031, he intends to stay in North America, and would agree to go through the AHL to gain experience and get closer to his goal: “My intention is not to return to Lausanne, but to stay in North America until I earn a spot.”
