Petan welcomes clean sheet
After four up-and-down seasons in Winnipeg, all he wants is a chance Nic Petan scored five goals in 108 games over four seasons with the Winnipeg Jets.
Nic Petan understands something every NHL player in his shoes knows.
After his first practice since Monday’s trade to Toronto from Winnipeg, Petan said his focus is on working as hard as he can, every chance he gets.
His last ice time with the Jets came on Dec. 22, and he’s projected for fourth-line duty whenever he makes his debut with the Maple Leafs.
“Things happen (in Winnipeg) and you have to pick yourself up,” the 23-year-old Petan said. “This is a great organization and I’m hoping I fit in well here.” On a day when the Leafs learned defenceman Jake Gardiner will be out week-to-week with a back injury — opening the door for Igor Ozhiganov, who hadn’t played since Jan. 23 — Petan continued to do what he can to be ready when his opportunity arrives.
Petan was drafted 43rd overall in 2013 and spent four years in the Jets organization, playing 108 NHL games while splitting time with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose.
His prospects seemed brighter in junior hockey with the Portland Winterhawks, where he racked up 358 points in 252 games. But Petan isn’t the first junior sensation who has had to rethink his game and try to re- invent himself to find steady NHL work.
For the Leafs, the five-footnine, 180-pound Petan represents untapped talent — a swift skater who, like Trevor Moore and other fourth-liners, has learned that one of the most important things to own in the NHL is the ability to be strong on the puck.
Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas parted with winger Par Lindholm in the trade. Lindholm, a pending unrestricted free agent, had played a valuable utility role this season. While averaging 1:39 per game on the penalty kill, he was a tireless worker who chipped in on defensive-zone faceoffs.
The Leafs asked penalty-killers Zach Hyman and Frederik Gauthier to work on their faceoff skills last summer, an area where Petan will need to show proficiency to crack the lineup.
“Life in pro sports is all about confidence, and the NHL can suck the confidence right out of you,” coach Mike Babcock said.
“You arrive out of junior and an organization picks you and they are excited about you, and for whatever reason it doesn’t go necessarily the way you want. That doesn’t mean it can’t go that way your next stop … Our job is to provide an opportunity for (Petan) to grow, and it’s his job to earn himself confidence. As much as you would like to give him confidence, you can’t. He has to earn it.”
Added Babcock: “I don’t know when he is going in the lineup. We will check him out in the next few days here, and figure out when he can go in and go from there.”
A chance is all Petan is asking for at this point. He said there were no hard feelings with the Jets — in fact, he praised the organization after the trade — but there is the sense that the former Winterhawks star, who played with Gauthier at the world junior championship, feels he has a lot more to offer.
“I played quite a (few) games, but I don’t know if it was in the right or wrong position and things like that,” Petan said of the Jets. “(It was) an unbelievable organization over there. Nothing but respect for all those guys.”