Canadiens still have high hopes for McCarron
Massive forward seems to be putting it all together in OHL after early struggles
When Michael McCarron watches this weekend’s NHL entry draft it’s bound to stir up memories.
The Canadiens prospect got up at 6 a.m. before the start of last year’s draft, excited and unable to sleep.
The Canadiens picked in the No. 25 spot and McCarron knew the organization had shown a lot of interest in him.
“So I was like, ‘Please be me. It’s such a good organization,’” McCarron recalled about being selected in the first round a year ago.
The 6-foot-6, 238-pound forward spent the season with the London Knights, opting to play major junior in the Ontario Hockey League rather than attend Western Michigan University.
He struggled with the transition last fall and wasn’t selected to the U.S. team for the world junior championship.
But he played much better in the second half of the season and is happy with the choice he made to play major junior.
“I love it here. ... It was a lot of fun playing on the team last year,” McCarron said. “There are so many great players. I learned so many things from the coaches and the players on my team.”
The hardest part of ad- justing to the OHL was probably the amount of games, McCarron said.
The Macomb, Mich., native played 59 games in the U.S. National Team Development Program in 2012-13 compared to 78 games this past season, including nine in the playoffs and three at the Memorial Cup.
“It was a lot more skilled and a lot faster I found,” McCarron said, adding the speed was a pretty big change for him.
“I had a pretty tough start there with a couple of things I had to get used to. And then come Christmas I was a little upset (with my play). I had to pick it up. And the second half I thought I played pretty well.
“I would say pretty average season,” added McCarron, who expects to play all next season the way he did in the second half this year.
McCarron scored 14 goals and picked up 20 assists in 66 games and finished the regular season a plus-11. He also led the Knights in penalty minutes with 120.
McCarron put up five points in nine playoff games — three goals and two assists.
The Christmas break really
“I needed to go to the front of the net and be a physical force and just started going to the net more in the second half.”
MICHAEL MCCARRON
let him think about what he needed to do.
“We got a long time off,” he said. “Got to think a little bit. Like look over my game and see what was going wrong. I came back, I think (with) a good attitude and things got better for me there.
“I’m a big body,” he added. “I needed to go to the front of the net and be a physical force and just started going to the net more in the second half of the year.”
McCarron is on track with where the Canadiens thought he’d be at this point, Trevor Timmins, the team’s director of amateur scouting, told reporters Thursday in Philadelphia.
McCarron, who turned 19 in March, had thought the switch to the OHL would be easy, Timmins added.
He has to grow into his body, said Timmins, who suggested it’s tough for kids in their draft year to devote enough time to training because they’re busy with the draft, the scouting combine and playing in international tournaments. This will be a big summer for McCarron, Timmins added.
McCarron spent last week in Montreal working out with Pierre Allard, the Canadiens’ strength and conditioning coach, and some other players from the team. He’ll travel to Montreal regularly this summer for training and also for the Canadiens’ development camp, which starts July 6 in Brossard.
He’s spending the summer in London and trains every day with Canadiens prospect Jarred Tinordi, who played two seasons with the Knights after the Habs selected him in the first round of the 2010 draft.
“We have a trainer,” McCarron said. “There’s a few other pro guys here so it’s a good atmosphere and it makes you push pretty hard, so that’s good.”
McCarron played right wing for the first half of the season and centre in the second half.
“My coach just wanted me to learn how to play in the defensive zone pretty well and being a centre you’ve got to do that,” McCarron said.
“I learned quite a bit and I succeeded at it. So it’s just an- other tool in my box that I can use if a coach needs a centre, I can play centre. If he needs a wing, I can play wing. It’s just better for me to know how to play different positions and know how to take faceoffs, be a key faceoff guy.”
McCarron received a lot of pointers during the season from Martin Lapointe, the Canadiens’ director of player development, who came to see him quite a bit. Lapointe also skated with McCarron during a practice “and kind of evaluated my practice,” McCarron said, telling him what he could work on and what not to work on.
“Obviously, I’ve got to get faster,” McCarron said. “I’m a big body. I’ve got to get my legs under me and I’ve got to get a lot stronger. They said that the summer is pretty big for me. It’s pretty much just get stronger, fill into my body and play a more mean game.”
Asked what part of his game he felt improved the most this year, McCarron said his feet and speed.
“And also just going to the net and using my body more,” he added. “Because when I first got here I saw everybody dangling and I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I gotta do that’ and obviously it didn’t work.
“So I’ve just got to keep playing my game, being a big body down low and going to the net with the puck and stuff like that.
“So if I keep doing that I’ll have no issues.”
bbranswell@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: bbranswell