Habs’ prospects join Quebecers at NCAA playoff tourney
The Canadiens took flyers in 2014 when they used their final two picks in the entry draft to select players headed to college.
They selected Hayden Hawkey, a goaltender from Colorado, in the sixth round and Jake Evans, a forward from the Tier Two St. Michael’s Buzzers, in the seventh round.
They were gambling that the players would develop their skills and get stronger with a few years on campus, and the team is starting to see a payoff.
Both players will be in action this weekend when the 16-team NCAA Tournament gets underway in four sites across the United States.
Hawkey is the starting goaltender for the Providence Friars, who won’t have to travel far for their first-round game against No. 2 Harvard Friday afternoon at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence.
A knee injury sidelined Hawkey in his final year with the Omaha Lancers of the USHL and he played only five games behind Edmonton prospect Nick Ellis in his freshman season at Providence. But Hawkey moved into the top spot when Ellis left school a year early to turn pro. Hawkey led the No. 13-ranked Friars with a 22-11-5 record, a 2.20 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage.
Evans, a 6-foot, 188-pound junior, played on Notre Dame’s top line alongside Bruins prospect Anders Bjork and was the team’s third-leading scorer with 15 goals and 38 points in 37 games.
He has added 15 pounds of muscle since arriving in South Bend, Ind., and is considered one of the top playmakers in college hockey. If Notre Dame gets bounced this weekend, there’s a possibility he could be in St. John’s to finish the season with the Canadiens’ top farm team, the AHL’s IceCaps.
There are 11 Quebec players in the tournament, the highest representation in more than a decade.
Cornell and Harvard each have three Quebec players, with the Cornell contingent being the most prominent. Senior forward Holden Anderson, junior forward Trevor Yates and freshman defenceman Yanni Kaldis are all regulars for the Big Red.
Yates and Anderson are among the six former Lac St. Louis minor players in the tournament and they have hockey in their blood. Yates’ father, Ross, played briefly in the NHL and, after a long career in the minors and in Europe, he coached the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch and the Saint John Sea Dogs in the QMJHL. Trevor Yates has 12 goals and 10 assists in 34 games with Cornell.
Anderson’s father, Shawn, had an 18-year pro career and played 255 NHL games.
Kaldis has the most interesting background. While most of this group played midget before going on to prep schools and Tier Two junior teams, Kaldis was in the Sports-études program at John Rennie High School and played two seasons at Dawson College before moving on to Nanaimo in the BCJHL. He had a goal and 13 assists in 34 games, and was named to the ECAC All-Rookie team.
Lewis Zerter-Gossage had 11 goals and 13 assists in 33 games for Harvard. Freshman forward Frédéric Grégoire and senior Phil Zielonka played sparingly for the Crimson this season.
Vimal Sukumaran, who made a switch from hard-hitting defenceman to hard-hitting forward with Lac St. Louis, and Laval defenceman Vincent Desharnais, play for Providence. Desharnais is 6-foot-6 and 219 pounds, and was Edmonton’s sixth-round draft choice last June.
Seventh-ranked Union College (N.Y.) features two forwards from Lac St. Louis, senior Michael Pontarelli and freshman Anthony Rinaldi.
Gabriel Chabot from Quebec City is a freshman at Boston University. He played most of his minor hockey in Alberta, where his father, Frédéric, was the goaltending coach for the Edmonton Oilers. Frédéric Chabot had an 18-year pro career and played 32 NHL games, half of them with the Canadiens.
There is no Canadian TV coverage of the tournament, but all games will be streamed live on tsn.go.