Dorsett burying more than doubts
Rugged vet, whose career was in jeopardy, has more goals than McDavid
HDETROIT e went from trying to slow Connor McDavid down to scoring more goals than him. What a month for Derek Dorsett. So good that people were claiming him off fantasy hockey waivers by the thousands.
“We have a 50-goal scorer on our team all of a sudden,” Brandon Sutter said.
There’s some tough news to share for Dorsett’s new fantasy owners. Sutter was joking. This is not sustainable. Dorsett is not going to score four goals every seven games.
But don’t let that take away from his story, because it’s a good one. By now, you know the heart-tugging part. A quick summary, Dorsett had surgery on his neck and was left wondering if it would end his career.
There is another element to all of this, however. It’s about a coach who believed in a player. When many were picking Dorsett to be the Canucks’ 13th forward this season, coach Travis Green was wondering if he could make up half of his shutdown duo.
“I know what kind of player he is, the energy he brings,” Green said. “I know he’s a fairly good penalty killer. I thought, looking at the lineup, him and Sutter could be a fairly good penalty killing pair. But there was also a wait and see with Dorsett. How was he going to come back from his injury? That was a big question mark for us. It kind of just fell into place.”
Green paired Sutter with Dorsett in their first pre-season game in China. He hasn’t looked back since.
“I wanted to make sure I played him a lot in the exhibition and got him up and running,” Green said. “For two reasons. One, to make sure he was ready to go. And two, to make sure he felt like he was ready to go.
“It just evolved. That line played some good games in exhibition. Going to China was probably a good thing for him. We were playing the Kings and he was playing against (Anze) Kopitar and (Jeff) Carter. From there, it all snowballed.”
All that in-game love Green invested in Dorsett has paid off for the player. Dorsett has gone from a guy who was second-guessing his career to one who now has tremendous confidence on the ice.
“A lot of it is opportunity, getting playing time,” Dorsett said. “It gives you confidence. You feel more confident with the puck. I’m not complaining about the ice time I’ve had in prior years. I know what my role is in the NHL and on teams. I’m a guy who can figure out what needs to be done.
“But from the start of this season we’ve been used as a shutdown pair. With that comes ice time. And when you’re doing a pretty good job of it, it builds confidence.” His teammates have taken notice. “A lot of times, you come back from an injury like that and you can be a little bit questionable on your confidence,” Sutter said. “You could be second-guessing your game. But he’s playing hard and he’s right back to where he was before it. It’s great to see because he’s a big part of our team and a big part of our dressing room.”
Seasons are long, so there is plenty of time to figure out if Dorsett can be effective playing 14 or 15 minutes a night, much of it matched up against other team’s top lines.
For the past four years, he’s most often been in the 12-minute per night range.
Recent history suggests it won’t be effective for the long haul. And by recent, I mean this month. Before Sunday’s game in Detroit, the Canucks were controlling just 46 per cent of the unblocked shot attempts when Sutter and Dorsett were on ice at even strength.
That’s not usually a winning recipe in the NHL, no matter the matchup.
But no one should be worrying about that today. What matters is Dorsett has more goals than McDavid.
What matters is he’s playing as hard and as well now as he did before his neck surgery.
What matters is Green believes in him and thinks he has a matchup line with Dorsett, Sutter and Markus Granlund that can regularly provide offence.
“You have Granlund and Sutter, two guys who scored quite a few goals last year,” Green said. “There’s no reason they can’t chip in offensively. It’s been a nice bonus Dorsett has the goals he has. But I think if they continue to play that hard game, you’re going to get chances when you’re playing against other team’s top lines.”