MINOR LEAGUER IS A SUPERSTAR IN THE CUP FINAL
The Predators got Gaudreau on the cheap, and he’s paying dividends at the right time
There was no demand to sign Frederick Gaudreau. There was only one crummy offer, take it or leave it.
He would be paid US$40,000, the minimum salary then in the American Hockey League, if he played for the Milwaukee Admirals. He would make half that much if he played for the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones. Those were the options. He had already been passed over in two NHL drafts.
There would be no signing bonus for him in 2013. There was no guarantee of anything but a chance. He could be let go without warning. The rest was up to him.
When Paul Fenton travelled to Victoriaville, Que., to watch Gaudreau play a junior hockey game, it was after he had been convinced by his chief scout Jeff Kealty and his regional scouts Tom Nolan and J.P. Glaude that Gaudreau was a player of some value. Fenton, the longtime assistant to Nashville Predators general manager David Poile, watched him play once and gave his approval.
“You could see he had hockey smarts,” Fenton said. “I thought he needed to improve his speed, but the more you watch him, the more you realize there is nothing wrong with his speed.
“I played with Bernie Nicholls. He didn’t look like he was going fast in transition, but he was. I think Freddy is a little bit like that. The more you watch Freddy, the more you appreciate everything he can do.”
The 24-year-old from Bromont, Que., who cost almost nothing is lighting it up in the Stanley Cup final. Midway through the deal he signed with the Predators’ AHL affiliate, Nashville took the next step. If Gaudreau remained on an AHL contract, he would have been available to to any NHL team.
“I was at the world junior in Finland and we made the decision to sign him to an NHL contract,” Fenton said. “Every time we would talk about our AHL team and who we would call up, his name would come up, and you can’t call up a player on an AHL contract. I told David, we have to sign this guy.”
Freddy Hockey signed an unspectacular contract with the Predators in the first days of 2016. This time he got a small signing bonus — all of US$20,000 — and a minor league raise from US$40,000 to US$60,000 a year. His NHL salary pays him just US$595,000: He’s been paid for only nine games thus far.
Over three seasons, the Predators have paid a ridiculously low figure of around US$240,000 for a player who has scored a teamleading three of their 13 goals in the NHL final.
By comparison, the top three picks in the 2012 NHL draft, in which Gaudreau was not chosen — Nail Yakupov, Ryan Murray and Alex Galchenyuk — have been paid more than US$20 million to date. Combined, they have four playoff goals.
“I don’t think any of us are shocked by what he’s doing,” said Dean Evason, Milwaukee’s head coach. “We’d watch him every day and think, ‘This guy is a player,’ and it took time to convince him he was a player.”
Much has been made of the chair near the wall in Nashville’s home dressing room. As a recent call-up, there wasn’t a stall for him. The training staff created one with a chair, a small table and his name plate. Some players would be embarrassed by this.
“He doesn’t care where he sits,” Evason said. “You give him a jersey and he goes out and plays. He doesn’t care who he plays with, where he is, where he’s sitting — he’s just a hockey player. He has skill on the ice, attitude and personality off it, and he’s one of the nicest guys in our dressing room, one of the classiest guys.”
Gaudreau was a 50-goal scorer in junior over three seasons in the QMJHL. That hardly got him noticed. He scored nine times in his first pro season, 15 times in his second season, and his wraparound goal on Matt Murray in Game 4 was his 31st goal of this hockey season, most of them coming in Milwaukee, three of them coming in the NHL final.
“For all of us in player development, this is just tremendous,” Evason said. “Everybody feels a little part of this. But give Freddy all the credit: There’s a Godgiven skill that he has, but to me it’s the other stuff he has shown that’s made the difference. Everybody is excited for him.
“We’re all feeling a part of this. Freddy Gaudreau was the hardest worker in our practice every day, we’re all so happy for him.”