Heward keeps Byram on an even keel
Former NHL blue-liner and first round pick helps Giants star handle high expectations
Jamie Heward may appreciate what Bowen Byram is experiencing more than any other member of the Vancouver Giants organization.
Byram, a speedy defenceman, is pegged as a top-10 selection ahead of June’s NHL Draft at Rogers Arena. Some suggest the second-year Vancouver Giants rearguard could go in the top five picks.
Heward is the Giants’ associate coach, the main lieutenant to bench boss Michael Dyck. Heward was also an NHL defenceman for nine seasons after being selected in the first round, 16th overall, by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1989 draft.
That was the same draft that the Vancouver Canucks landed Pavel Bure. The same draft where the Detroit Red Wings snagged Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov.
That was a draft for coaches in waiting, too, apparently. Current bench bosses Travis Green (Canucks), Adam Foote (Kelowna Rockets), Bob Boughner (Florida Panthers) and Dan Lambert (Spokane Chiefs), as well as assistants Dan Bylsma (Detroit Red Wings) and Jim Hiller (Toronto Maple Leafs), joined Heward among those selected.
“It’s been nice having him around. Obviously he’s been through kind of the same thing that I’m going through,” said the 17-year-old Byram, a Cranbrook native. “Just to have somebody there to talk to, and not just about hockey, has been huge for me.”
Heward, 47, admits the pressure has skyrocketed from his draft year.
He was in his second season with the Regina Pats that campaign. He says he didn’t realize where he sat in terms of the draft until he read The Hockey News.
He’d get the odd update from Rob Vanstone, who covered the Pats for the Regina Leader-Post, and would speak with NHL scouts.
Today, you can waste away hours on the internet looking at mock drafts for June, checking to see where Byram slots in. You can go down the Twitter rabbit hole and get caught up in reviewing highlight reel moments from this year’s draft class.
“It’s a different world now because of social media,” said Heward. “I never had that.”
Heward lauds Byram for how well he’s handled all the hype and hubbub, but admits “there are days you can tell that it drains on him.”
With the world juniors being held in Vancouver and Victoria, there was substantial buzz around whether Byram would get a tryout and Heward thinks that wore on him, to the point “he was still outgoing, but he wasn’t the same kid who was here in October.”
Byram didn’t get an invite to selection camp and “he was upset for three or four days, but then he really started to take off again.”
Byram’s game has flourished of late, and Heward ties it to the Giants adding WHL veteran defencemen Dallas Hines and Seth Bafaro in trades. That’s cut back Byram’s ice time from earlier in the year to something more manageable.
Going into a Wednesday visit to Kamloops for a contest with the Blazers, Byram had 18 goals, 46 points and a plus15 rating after 46 games with the Giants.
“He thought the game well before, but now he has the legs to do the things he wants to,” said Heward. “It makes a big difference. His game is pushing the pace and jumping in when he can and creating offence.
“He looks more comfortable.”
Heward, a 6-foot-2, 215pound right-handed shot, played 394 NHL games. He amassed 38 goals and 124 points. His best season arguably was 2005-06, when he averaged 21 minutes, 52 seconds a game and produced a career-high 28 points in 71 outings with the Washington Capitals.
Washington’s coach, oddly enough, was Glen Hanlon, who was the Giants’ general manager for two seasons before parting ways with the club last summer.