Utah acquires Joshua Roy from Canadiens in AHL-focused swap

Utah and Montreal swapped two of the AHL’s more established young players on Sunday, sending Joshua Roy to the Mammoth and defenseman Maksymilian Szuber to the Canadiens in a one-for-one deal that reaches directly into the Laval Rocket and Tucson Roadrunners pipelines.

Roy arrives in Utah as the more established scorer. The 22-year-old set career highs with Laval in 2025-26, finishing with 23 goals, 22 assists and 45 points in 57 games, then added three NHL games with Montreal. Across his pro career, Roy has 112 points in 145 AHL games and six goals and five assists in 28 NHL games, a track record that gives Utah a forward who has already driven offense in the minors and flashed enough at the top level to stay on the recall radar.

The appeal is not only the numbers. Montreal drafted Roy in the fifth round in 2021, and before turning pro he piled up 97 goals in his final 121 Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League regular-season games with Sherbrooke. He also scored in three straight playoff games for Laval during the Rocket’s 2024-25 run to the conference finals, the kind of late-season production that keeps a player planted near the center of an AHL depth chart even when the NHL doors are still only partly open.

Szuber gives Montreal a different kind of asset. The 23-year-old defenseman produced 11 goals and 16 assists for 27 points in 65 games with Tucson this season, then finished his three-year AHL run there with 25 goals, 62 assists and 87 points in 200 games. Utah said he also logged 162 penalty minutes in those games, a sign he has combined offensive touch with a heavier edge on the blue line. Drafted by the Arizona Coyotes in the sixth round in 2022, Szuber also has one NHL game on his résumé, a debut on April 9, 2024, in a 5-0 loss to Seattle.

For the AHL clubs, the effect is immediate. Laval loses one of its top young finishers, which opens more room for the next wave of Rocket forwards to climb into the scoring slots Roy occupied. Tucson, meanwhile, has to replace a defenseman who could take power-play touches and tougher assignments, while Utah gains another forward option in the call-up ladder as camp approaches. In a one-for-one trade like this, the most important movement happens below the NHL scoreboard, where one roster spot can change who gets the first real look in September.