Drouin’s frustrating first season in Montreal
Forward puts chill in fans’ expectations after much-anticipated arrival from Tampa
Jonathan Drouin’s first season in Montreal has not gone the way he or Canadiens fans had hoped — not even close.
After the Canadiens acquired Drouin from the Tampa Bay Lightning last summer in exchange for defenceman Mikhail Sergachev, the 22-yearold from Ste-Agathe went to Montreal’s Old Port to meet some fans and shoot a video for the team’s website.
One fan wearing an Expos cap and T-shirt said he expected Drouin to score 25 goals. Another believed the Canadiens were “going in the right direction” and hoped Drouin would get at least 80 points. A young boy said: “He’ll do well in the city of Montreal. He’ll score a lot of goals.”
When asked how many, the boy responded: “Thirty-nine.”
An older Canadiens fan had even higher expectations, telling Drouin he expected 50 goals and that the Canadiens would advance to at least the third round of the NHL playoffs.
At the end of the video, Drouin says: “After our visit in the Old Port, it seems expectations are pretty high. I think I have my work cut out for me to score 50 goals, but you know I’ll return to the gym tomorrow, get skating and get to work on it.”
Those warm, summer dreams for Drouin and Canadiens fans are now as frozen as the city of Montreal, where the temperature was -18C Monday afternoon with a wind chill of -28C. After Monday night’s game against the New York Islanders, the Canadiens have an 18-20-6 record and are sitting in 14th place in the 16-team Eastern Conference. A big reason for that is the fact Drouin has only six goals and 15 assists in 39 games, is minus-19 and is winning only 40 per cent of his faceoffs in his new role as a No. 1 centre.
With 21 points, Drouin is tied for 186th on the NHL scoring list and his six goals are tied with fourth-line teammate Nicolas Deslauriers, who has played 15 fewer games. With 688 minutes nine seconds total ice time this season — including 132:01 on the power play — Drouin was more than 400 minutes ahead of Deslauriers’s 261:14, which included 21 seconds of power-play time. There are 238 players in the NHL with more than six goals.
The numbers aren’t pretty and things aren’t going to get any easier for Drouin and the Canadiens with news Monday Andrew Shaw is out indefinitely with a lower-body injury and Phillip Danault is suffering from “concussion-like symptoms” after taking a Zdeno Chara slapshot off the head during a 4-3 shootout loss Saturday night to the Boston Bruins. The Canadiens claimed centre Logan Shaw off waivers Monday from the Anaheim Ducks, where he had two goals and six assists in 42 games, while winning only 23.5 per cent of his faceoffs.
“I think you look at everybody … I think it’s frustrating for a lot of guys offensively,” Drouin said after the Canadiens’ open public practice Sunday at the Bell Centre. “It’s just the way it is. You got to keep playing. We’re still battling and we got to start winning games.”
When asked Sunday if the adjustment to centre has been more difficult than expected, Drouin said: “Not really. It’s the way I thought it would be. Obviously, it’s not an easy position to play in the NHL. You play guys with so much experience that are heavy on their stick and they have that experience that I don’t have yet.”
Before a game in Tampa last month, Drouin spoke about also adjusting to the Canadiens’ system, which is different from the Lightning ’s.
“I think we just play differently, more conservative,” he said. “But I think at the end of the day, playing centre is a learning curve and you can’t just go on and be 100 per cent and be comfortable right away. I’m still learning some new things and it’s not the job that I’m used to.”
Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin said during his mid-season news conference that Drouin would be playing on the wing in a perfect world, but for now he’s the best they have at centre. It obviously hasn’t been good enough.
One person who has been surprised by Drouin’s struggles is former Canadiens coach Scotty Bowman, now a senior adviser for hockey operations with the Chicago Blackhawks who lives in Florida and attends all the Lightning home games.
“I thought he would be an excellent player on the power play for Montreal,” said Bowman, who watched Drouin when he was with the Lightning. “He’s a very good passer. Bobby Smith (the former Canadien who is now owner and president of the QMJHL’s Halifax Mooseheads) told me Drouin is one of the best who ever played for him and he’s had a lot of good players.”
Drouin had 41 goals and 64 assists in 49 games with the Mooseheads during the 201213 season before the Lightning selected him with the No. 3 overall pick at the 2013 NHL draft.
“I don’t think his best has come out,” Bowman said about Drouin. “There’s a lot of pressure on him ... but he’s only 22.”
He’s also not really a centre — and that part isn’t his fault.