Scherbak gets a fresh start in L.A.
Nikita Scherbak won’t have a problem finding some new coffee shops in Los Angeles. The L.A. Kings acquired Scherbak on waivers Sunday, adding another name to the long list of first-round draft picks who haven’t worked out for the Canadiens. The Canadiens selected Scherbak 26th overall in the 2014 NHL draft after he posted 28-50-78 totals in 65 games with the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades during his first season in Canada since leaving Russia as a 17-year-old. His first real introduction to life in Canada came at a Tim Hortons coffee shop in Saskatoon. “It was my first Canadian experience,” Scherbak recalled during a training-camp interview this year. “I was so scared to go in because I couldn’t speak English, so I couldn’t order. So I had to point at what I wanted. Sometimes I wanted to have a coffee and they’d give me a smoothie. I’d be like: ‘All right, it’s fine, I guess I’m drinking a smoothie today.’ It was right by the billet’s house where I was staying, about a five-minute walk.” Scherbak quickly adjusted to life in Canada and by the time the Canadiens drafted him, he already was comfortable being interviewed in English. Unfortunately, his adjustment to pro hockey wasn’t as smooth and he had only 5-2-7 totals in 29 games with the Canadiens over the past two seasons. He didn’t play a single game with the Canadiens this season — and scored only one goal with no assists in five games with the AHL’s Laval Rocket, before suffering a lower-body injury and then being placed on waivers. At the end of the 2015-16 season, I spent a week in St. John’s covering the IceCaps when Scherbak was playing his first year in the AHL. At the time, IceCaps coach Sylvain Lefebvre expressed some concerns about Scherbak, who finished that season with 7-16-23 totals in 48 games and was minus-26. “Nikita’s got lots of talent,” Lefebvre said. “He’s easy to coach, he wants to learn. He does a lot of homework ... he’ll watch a lot of video. Where we want him to be more of a professional is practice habits, workout habits. He’s improved a lot, but he needs to improve even more. Maybe it’s not natural in him to go hard every time.” When I spoke one-on-one with Scherbak during training camp this season, I asked what’s the biggest lesson he had learned since his first NHL training camp. “You have to compete and got to play hard, show up every day, every shift and be consistent,” the 22-year-old said. “I think that’s what makes players succeed and I’m trying to work at it. Worth ethic, that’s the biggest thing, be professional about working hard every day no matter how you feel. I think that’s the main point that I learned. You have to be professional and work hard every day.” Now Scherbak will have a chance to work hard every day with the Kings, who are the worst team in the NHL with a 9-16-1 record and rank last in offence, scoring an average of 2.12 goals per game. The Kings can use any help they can get, especially after announcing Sunday that Ilya Kovalchuk will be out for four weeks with an ankle injury. Scherbak wasn’t able to produce offensively on a consistent basis with the Canadiens or in the AHL and his work ethic and defensive hockey smarts didn’t match the likes of Michael Chaput, Kenny Agostino and Nicolas Deslauriers to move ahead of them on the depth chart for a spot on the fourth line. Maybe a change of scenery and a new coaching staff will help Scherbak find his game in L.A., but I wouldn’t bet on it. Scherbak is the latest in a list of first-round draft picks from six consecutive years who didn’t work out for the Canadiens, including Mike McCarron (25th overall, 2013), Alex Galchenyuk (third, 2012), Nathan Beaulieu (17th, 2011), Jarred Tinordi (22nd, 2010) and Louis Leblanc (18th, 2009). If you want to know why the Canadiens have struggled in recent years — missing the playoffs in two of the last three seasons — there’s a big part of the answer. When I asked Scherbak at training camp this year if he felt added pressure as a first-round draft pick, he said: “Forget about it. It’s in the past and you got to move on. I think it’s been quite a long time ago, so you have to kind of forget it and try to move on.” Scherbak had started to lay down some roots in Montreal, getting engaged this past summer to Laurie Legault, whom he met at a restaurant, and they have been living together in Chambly. Scherbak said Legault is an “amazing cook” and was teaching him to speak French. When asked if he still likes Tim Hortons coffee, Scherbak said: “Sometimes. I’m more like a Starbucks or a Second Cup guy now.” Now, he’s also an L.A. guy.