GAUDREAU DISPLAYED ‘WOW’ FACTOR EARLY
Despite his small stature, Flames took chance in 2011 and got big returns
Tod Button remembers the first time he spied Johnny Gaudreau.
“I absolutely do — July of 2010 in Rochester, N.Y., at the U.S. Select 17 camp,” said Button, the longtime director of amateur scouting for the Calgary Flames. “He scored three goals in about eight minutes and I was sitting in the stands laughing to myself. Just laughing. One of them was short-handed and another one, he drew three guys to himself and then beat them all.
“I think I saw him play three times at that camp, but he scored three in eight minutes that first time. So I remember it distinctly. I could tell you, I was 10 rows up, sitting on the blue-line on the offensive side. That’s how vividly I remember it.
“There are very few guys that I could tell you exactly where the first time I saw them, but he stood out. I think he stood out because the goals were so highend, and because he was so small. That was his storyline, right? I was just laughing. I was thinking, ‘ Who is this little guy?!?’ ”
That little guy is now one of the biggest names in hockey.
While most of his buddies enjoy a weekend off, Gaudreau is in Tampa for the 2018 NHL AllStar Game, his fourth straight trip to represent the Flames at the showcase event.
Calgary’s go-to goaltender, Mike Smith, is also on the Pacific Division roster for the midseason shindig, which includes Saturday’s skills competition and Sunday’s three-on-three tournament.
“In this league, it’s hard to be dangerous every shift. And when Johnny is out there, I feel he’s dangerous every shift,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan earlier this week. “He’s just one of those guys that brings people out of their seats a bit when he touches the puck. There are only a handful of guys in the league that do that, and he’s certainly one of them.”
He’s always had that effect. Flames general manager Brad Treliving doesn’t remember the exact date, row or the price of coffee when he scouted the wee left-winger for the first time, but it would have been during Gaudreau’s draft-eligible season with the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League, a Junior A level loop stuffed with soon-to-be NCAA skaters.
“Even back then, he did things the other players couldn’t do,” said Treliving, then an assistant general manager for the Arizona Coyotes. “But In evaluating him, it was probably the same thing he’d heard his whole life — you were wowed by the talent but then you said, ‘Jeez, he’s a really small guy.’
“But then seeing him when he got up to college and as he progressed, world juniors and those types of things, just every level he went to, he continued to be the best player. That’s probably what sticks out for me, when you ask what’s your early recollection of Johnny? You’d see him in the USHL and he was a top player, but you’re saying, ‘ Well, can he do it at the next level?’ And then he gets to college, and he’s the best player. And then he gets to the international stage, to world juniors. He was just a top player all the time.”
That hasn’t changed. Gaudreau is currently perched in a tie for seventh in the NHL’s scoring race. With 15 goals and 41 assists, he’s factored on 41.8 per cent of the Flames’ tallies so far this season.
Among graduates of the 2011 NHL Draft class, only four guys have posted more points than the No. 104 pick that summer. They’ve all played at least one more season at hockey’s highest level.
The Professional Hockey Writ- ers Association (PHWA) revealed the results of a mid-season award poll Friday, with Gaudreau pegged as the front-runner for the Lady Byng Trophy. That would be a repeat.
And this all-star stuff has become old hat for the Flames’ fan favourite. Now 24, he has scored an invite in each of his four campaigns.
“It’s easy after the fact to say, ‘Oh yeah, I always loved him,’ ” said Treliving, harkening back to Gaudreau’s draft year, when he was listed at five-foot-six and 150 pounds. “But when I saw him at that age.… You didn’t question his skill-set but you were always like, ‘Jeez, can he do it at that size?’ That was always the concern.
“A lot of teams would talk about how talented he was, but credit the Flames for stepping up and making the selection. And I’m sure thankful they did.”
After winning rookie-of-theyear honours in his only winter in the USHL, Gaudreau stuffed the scoresheet for three seasons with the NCAA’s Boston College Eagles.
The wee wonder from Carneys Point., N.J., was the leading marksman at the 2013 IIHF World Junior Championship in Ufa, Russia, where he tickled twine seven times and headed home with a gold medal in his suitcase.
He was feted as the Hobey Baker Award winner in 2014, signing a contract with the Flames that very same day and making his big-league debut only 48 hours later in the season finale against the Vancouver Canucks on the West Coast.
That’s when Mark Giordano saw him for the first time. He remembers.
“Yeah, him and Billy (Arnold) came up and played their first game,” recalled the Flames captain. “Johnny scored that game, too, but it was a gimme, a backdoor tap-in or something like that. So we really didn’t see the Johnny Hockey, what he could do, until the next season.
“I mean, you could see the poise. I remember in that pregame skate, he was on the power play and you could see the crossice seam plays and stuff like that. But you also could see that he’s a small guy and you’re like, ‘How is this going to work out?’
“But playing with him now, watching him for four years now, you take for granted how good he is at making plays. He honestly sees the game at a different speed. He’s two steps ahead. He’s right up there this year with his (offensive) numbers and he should be up there in MVP voting. He’s carrying our team, him and Smitty.”
In Calgary, fingers are crossed that Gaudreau and Smith — and Giordano, too — can carry their club to a playoff berth.
Despite four consecutive overtime or shootout losses since their momentum-killing bye, the Flames (25-16-8) are currently slotted third in the Pacific Division standings. Their next action comes Tuesday, when they host the NHL’s feel-good story of the season — the Vegas Golden Knights — at the Saddledome.
First, Gaudreau will put on a show at the 2018 NHL All- Star Game.
There’s a good chance that, at some point this weekend, the superstar left-winger will make a play or platter a pass that leaves you giggling, just like the Flames’ lead amateur scout was on that day in Rochester, N.Y., in July of 2010.
That was 11 months before Calgary’s brass made Gaudreau a fourth-round pick.
A steal, at that.
“When you see somebody score three goals in eight minutes, and two of them would have been highlight-reel goals, that gets etched in your memory,” Button said. “And then you end up tracking him and following him and drafting him … If somebody else had drafted him, maybe I wouldn’t remember it as vividly.
“But I do. I was just laughing and saying to myself, ‘ Who is this kid?!?’ ” Ice chips: With the NHL breaking for all-star festivities, the Flames reassigned a hat-trick of forward call-ups — Marek Hrivik, Ryan Lomberg and Andrew Mangiapane — to the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat. With Flames RW Michael Frolik nearing a return after missing a month with a cracked jaw, it’s likely that only one or two of them will be recalled immediately after the weekend.
In this league, it’s hard to be dangerous every shift. And when Johnny is out there, I feel he’s dangerous every shift. He’s just one of those guys.