by Christopher Nardella, Staff Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
POINTE CLAIRE, QC. — Marc Bergevin’s seventh trade brought his team Dale Weise from the Vancouver Canucks with defenceman Raphaël Diaz going back the other way. The February 2014 deal sent the Swiss D-man to the west coast and brought a presumed fourth liner to a Canadiens team in desperate need of physicality and, as it would turn out, he would bring more to the table.
Raphaël Diaz became expendable when the Habs’ influx of defensive depth pushed the 6-foot-0 righty to fourth pairing isolation. He was shipped off to the west coast where he played 20 plus minutes in his first game in Van City before being dealt to the Rangers at the deadline that season.
The Rangers used the 111th overall pick in 2008 to select Dale Weise from Swift Current of the WHL. The Winnipeg, Manitoba native played his first full season of junior in 2005-06 and had just four goals and 18 points in 57 games on an extremely bad Swift Current Broncos team. Their leading scorer was a minus-22; Weise himself was minus-14. Much like his team, Weise’s production had an uptick in his sophmore season. Weise was second on the team in goals (18) and points (43), while maintaining his minus-14 rating from the previous season and the Broncos went from 24 wins to 33.
After being passed over in the 2007 draft, the Dutch Gretzky had his best season of junior, as most do in their last year. Weise led the team in goals with 29 and was fifth on the team in points with 50. In the 53 games he played he had a plus-8 rating and the team advanced past the first round for the first, and only, time in franchise history. In 12 playoff games Weise shined with a seven goal, six assist output.
The 6-foot-2-inch forward was sent to the Rangers’ AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolfpack, after his first training camp in the NHL and had a solid first season of pro hockey. He played 74 out of the team’s 76 games and scored 11 goals with 12 helpers on route to the team’s Atlantic division conquest. The Wolf Pack were eliminated in the first round but Weise still had three goals and an assist in the six game series.
The Manitoban had his best statistical pro season in 2009-10 when he had 28 goals and 50 points in 73 games. He also had 114 penalty minutes, the most he’s had at any level. Despite his progression, the team that had 46 wins the season before was no more; they only won 36 games and failed to reach the playoffs. The next season, Weise burst out of the gates with 18 goals and 38 points in 43 games. He had multiple stints with the big club, but was in the AHL by season’s end. In the 10 games he played under John Tortorella he had no points and had 19 penalty minutes.
The next season, the Rangers coaching staff and General Manager Glenn Sather made a decision to put the non-exempt Weise on waivers. Vancouver picked up the then 23-year old grinder and had him play 68 games with them in which he had four goals and eight points along with 81 penalty minutes.
The days of the 27-year-old being a leading scorer on his team were gone but during the NHL lockout he played for the Tilburg Trappers of the HLND and reinstituted his confidence. In the 19 games he spent in the Netherlands he had 22 goals and 48 points. He was third on the team in points that season despite playing around half the season. “I think going to Tilburg my confidence just kind of grew from there. I had the chance to be an impact guy again. […] When you’re playing a fourth line role you kind of get stuck in that role where you don’t want to make mistakes, don’t want to take chances. You play a simple game so the coach can play you. [..] In Tilburg it kind of reinstilled that confidence in myself.”
Despite being deployed in a fourth line role he had his best point-per-game season to that point with three goals and the same amount of assists in 40 games.
As his career progressed, so did his point totals. The 2013-14 season saw him score three goals and score nine points in 44 games in Vancouver prior to being dealt to the team he loves a month before the trade deadline. Weise was in and out of the lineup and had a mutually hard-headed misunderstanding with head coach John Tortorella in Vancouver.
Tortorella, like most of the Canucks fan base at that time, found that Weise would be better suited playing a fourth line grinding role, while Weise believed he still had an offensive skill set he could still flaunt. “It wasn’t working with Dale in my mind. If I don’t think a player is assessing himself correctly, I’m going to assess him” said the one-year head coach of the Canucks. “I wish him the best. I hope he thrives. But it wasn’t working here.” And he did but not before sending out some parting shots.
“It was never something (Tortorella) explicitly said. It was more like, ‘you played four minutes tonight, but what did you really do out there?’” “Of all the things that built up in Vancouver — not getting opportunities, the setbacks, the disappointment — that felt like the low point of my career it was heartbreaking.” After being called off the ice during a practice, Weise new he wouldn’t be a Canuck much longer. “I wasn’t nervous so much as excited for something to happen.” “[Following getting told there was a trade in place, Tortorella] just walked out of the room. Didn’t say goodbye, didn’t say good luck, nothing. That was it.” confessed Weise.
As most know, Weise was a childhood Habs fan, and as was his family, so he was aware of how big hockey is in Montreal and there was a telltale sign of the difference between the two Canadian cities he’s played for as soon as he landed in Quebec “In Vancouver, I could have worn my Dale Weise jersey around the block and no one would have recognized me. Then I get to the airport in Montreal and there’s cameras waiting for me[…]”
Weise’s impact was not so much felt as soon as he arrived in Montreal, as he had three goals and an assist in 17 games in the regular season, but he made his mark that spring. In the Habs’ 16 playoff games on way to the Eastern Conference final, the Dutch Gretzky had three goals (two of which were game winners) and seven points. More entertainingly, he reduced Milan Lucic to a 228 pound six-year old who didn’t get their DQ slushy. The mocking flex of his muscles and King Kong chest pump endeared him to Habs fans more so than his play.
For the majority of his career the son of Miles and Barb played without a visor on. Whether it was purposely or purely coincidence as he began to wear one the stereotype around him began to change. The player he always knew he was began to come out and be accepted, his play reflected that next season.
The ten goals and 29 points that he had in 2014-15 were both career highs as was his plus-21 rating. He saw time on the first line with Max Pacioretty and David Desharnais, which saw some of the fans begin to turn on him for being played out of his element but the hysteria calmed down when he was moved back down the lineup. In last year’s playoffs he was mostly deployed in a shutdown role with Tomas Plekanec and Alex Galchenyuk so his points naturally depreciated.
This season, Weise has been put in an offensive role from the start with linemates Tomas Fleischmann and David Desharnais on the third line, the early feedback is positive. The trio seems to have developed chemistry relatively immediately and the three will give a different dynamic to the traditionally defensive third line.
The 6-foot-2, 210 pound forward is certainly a fan favourite at this point, due in part to his style of play, personality and background as a Habs fan but his acceptance of Montreal is one of the more special reasons why he is so beloved. “I can’t walk five feet without fans stopping and talking to me, some guys it bothers them but me, I love it, people always come up to me and say ‘I don’t want to bother you, but me, I love it, I love the fans, I love the people in Montreal, this is where I want to be.”
The man who was considered a perpetual fourth liner has changed other’s general perception of him to a top nine forward, the role he always knew he could occupy.