AROUND THE Q
Still hope for unsigned junior standouts to land an NHL deal
Columnist Patrick McNeil gives the inside scoop on the QMJHL.
The bright lights of Las Vegas have inspired plenty of dreams over the years, and now that includes those of the late-blooming hockey player.
Last week the Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL’s newest team, became official and are now able to make player transactions. With the current NHL season still in swing and no bonafide professional players on the Knights roster, the focus is on searching for hidden gems. The new club added its first asset last week, overage forward Reid Duke of the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, who has 67 points in 54 games this year and previously had been drafted by Minnesota.
There are plenty of junior hockey stars who keep the dream alive even if they’re not drafted, or are selected but go unsigned by the club that originally chose them. Vegas may create a new world of opportunity — not only will they need 40 or so fresh bodies to fill an NHL and an AHL squad, other teams will need more bodies to replace those they will lose to the new outfit. And perhaps that’s why this winter we’ve already seen two 20-year-old overage QMJHLers sign professional contracts.
Twenty-year-old free agents inking contracts isn’t a new thing, although in 2015-16 it was not until after the season that graduating QMJHLers Yan-Pavel Laplante and Nikolas Brouillard landed pro deals. Laplante had been drafted by Phoenix in 2013, went unsigned, but after the forward produced over a point a game in Gatineau was signed by Vancouver. Brouillard, an offensive defenseman who moved from Québec to Rouyn-Noranda at the deadline to help the Huskies win the title, was never chosen in the NHL draft. He attended camps with San Jose and Winnipeg before signing his name on the dotted line with Toronto.
Laplante and Brouillard have both primarily been in the ECHL this year. The Canucks have gone back to the QMJHL well again, as have the Chicago Blackhawks. Despite both being late signing NHL free agents, the stories of Zack MacEwen and Matthew Highmore are quite different.
Highmore was picked eighth overall in the 2012 QMJHL draft by a then rebuilding Saint John Sea Dogs club. His offensive potential was always there but he saw a breakthrough as a 19-year-old and now finds himself fourth in scoring and as an alternate captain on the current number one team in the CHL. After attending Montreal camp in 2014 and Florida camp in 2016, Chicago signed the 5’11 forward last week.
Size isn’t a concern for MacEwen — standing at 6’4 — but he originally couldn’t capture the attention of QMJHL scouts, let alone the NHL’s. Halfway through his 18-year-old season he had not received a sniff of major junior action, but was added by the Moncton Wildcats and became a regular come playoff time. He showed some offensive pop at 19, and then was dealt to Gatineau for his final junior campaign. Despite the highly touted Olympiques underachieving through the first half of the season, their hulking forward delivered the goods, and with 67 points in 62 games also has a contract with the Canucks in his pocket.
Producing points in junior and in the pro ranks are different stories, and it’s why if you look through the QMJHL scoring leaders you’ll see plenty of unsigned 20-year-olds — including 100-point-man-to-be Tyler Bolland, who has racked up numbers with not much help on a weak Rimouski squad. Also in the top 10 of scoring you’ll find François Beauchemin (3rd, Charlottetown), Alexandre Goulet (5th, Victoriaville), Christophe Boivin (7th, Bathurst), and Giovanni Fiore (10th, Cape Breton) — all undrafted overagers.
NHL teams have to look for transferability in the skills of these hockey players in question — can he score at a higher level and if not, can they attribute in another way? What hurts the case of many of these players is they weren’t elite scorers until age 19, at which point they are playing in a league primarily with younger competition. For someone like Boivin, a 5’8” frame is unfortunately another strike against pro potential.
Fans locally in Sydney watching Fiore and his league-best 47 goals would love to see him get an opportunity, and as a top penalty killer his play away from the puck is hardly a negative to his game. On the backend, overage captain Olivier LeBlanc has anchored a young blueline with strong results and could get another look after going unsigned by Columbus, who drafted him in the seventh round in 2014.
Regardess of how the season finishes for the league’s outgoing players, the stories of Highmore and MacEwan have shown that the dream is still alive and well.