Wildcats' birthday boy wins QMJHL's Selke Trophy

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As far as birthday presents go, they don’t come much better for Moncton Wildcats winger Preston Lounsbury.

On Friday, the Salisbury native celebrated his 19th birthday by learning he had captured the QMJHL’s Frank-J.-Selke Memorial Trophy, presented to the most sportsmanlike yet effective player.

“If you look back at the players who have won this award, there’s some pretty big names there,” said Lounsbury. “I am just honoured to be in the same category as them.”

Lounsbury exploded into an offensive force for the Wildcats this past season with a career best 19 goals and 57 points, more than double his production from the previous season of 28 points.

He registered just six minutes in penalties during the campaign while playing on the Cats’ M-C-L line with Miles Muller and Vincent Collard.

“For the majority of the season, we were together as a line,” said Lounsbury of the near instant connection. “Off the ice, they’re two great guys who bring a lot of energy, are always smiling and wanting to get better. We all have those same values and want to help the team win as much as possible. We clicked pretty quick, and we enjoyed playing together, which helped a lot.”

He played in many situations as the Cats secured the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference, and did so while keeping out of the penalty box.

As a rookie, he recorded 28 points and 18 penalty minutes last season.

“Every time I go there, I’m going to battle, no matter what it is but I think I played the game the right way,” Lounsbury said.

“I am not the biggest guy out there, so it’s not like I’m going around just laying hits and all that. I think it’s more so I use my knowledge. I was fortunate enough to be put in a lot of situations by the coaching staff and they give me tons of opportunities to experience penalty kill, powerplay and five-on-five and it molded into a role where I can be used in any situation.”

Lounsbury was drafted in the fourth round of the 2021 QMJHL draft, and earned an invite to the Edmonton Oilers rookie camp this past summer prior to the start of the QMJHL campaign.

He carried that experience over to the regular season.

“Going back to junior, it was being even more motivated to help the team as much as possible, and to share my experience, take what I learned there and keep my play at the same level as when I was up there,” he said.

A top golfer with a 3 handicap, he is planning to hit the course this weekend in Petitcodiac and then in the coming weeks will resume training for next season, after the team fell short of its goals when they were swept in the opening round of the playoffs by Chicoutimi.

“It is definitely not the way you want to go out, for sure. You work all season toward the playoffs then to just kind of throw it all away, it stinks. Our group really wanted to do something with what we had and we thought we could. It was right there in some of those games in that series, but we just couldn’t stick it out.”

The other nominees for the award were Justin Larose of the Victoriaville Tigres and Julien Paille of the Baie Comeau Drakkar.

Larose, who completed his third season in Victoriaville, registered 80 points and was the team’s leading scorer while registering 26 penalty minutes. Paille assisted in a major way as the Drakkar won the regular season championship with his 27 goals and 53 points, while recording 12 minutes in penalties.

Three Wildcats have won the award previously – Jakob Pelletier (2020), Jonathan Roy (2000) and Simon Lalibterte (1998).

Attilio Biasca of the Halifax Mooseheads was last season’s winner.