Playing Career
Perreault started his hockey career for the Trois-Rivières Draveurs where he was one of the best offensive players in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, racking up a total of 185 points in his most productive season. He was drafted in the third round, 47th overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft.
Carrying a reputation as too slow a skater to succeed in the NHL, Perreault played three years for Toronto's minor league farm team in Newfoundland. Perrault led the St. John's Maple Leafs to a seventh game in the Calder Cup finals in the 1992 season and to first place finishes the following two seasons; his 132 goals and 276 points became in that span, and remain, career records for the Leafs' American Hockey League franchise.
Perrault made his NHL debut in that third season with the Leafs, showing some flash in spot duty, before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings for a fourth round pick in 1994. He spent most of that season with the Kings' minor league affiliate, the Phoenix Roadrunners, scoring 51 goals to lead the team.
The following year was his breakout season, making the NHL for good with the Kings, where he became the team's lead centre after Wayne Gretzky was traded late in the year amidst a full-scale reorganization of the team; Perreault scored 25 goals to finish second on the squad. He played three more seasons in Los Angeles before being sent back to Toronto in 1999, for Jason Podollan and a third round selection. In 2001, Perreault signed with the Montreal Canadiens as a free agent, remaining three seasons before sitting out the lockout year of 2005, after which he signed with the Nashville Predators, with whom he scored 57 points, his NHL career high.
He signed after that single season with the Phoenix Coyotes and was selected to play in the 2007 NHL All-Star Game. On February 27, 2007, Perreault, packaged with a fifth round draft pick, was traded from the Coyotes to Toronto for defencemen Brendan Bell and a second round draft pick, marking his third round of duty with the Maple Leafs.
Perreault signed with the Chicago Blackhawks as a free agent on July 1, 2007. However with his scoring skills diminishing, he retired at the end of the 2007-08 season.
Perreault is often considered one of the best faceoff men in recent NHL history.
Read more about this topic: Yanic Perreault
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