Brossoit ‘confused’ after being odd man out
Laurent Brossoit’s arrival at the national junior team selection camp was all glitz and glamour at Calgary International Airport, where the media was making a major fuss about star centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
There was no glitz associated with the Edmonton Oil Kings netminder’s departure Thursday night, just confusion and no small amount of pain at being the odd man out as Team Canada cut down from four goalies to three for the upcoming world junior hockey championship.
“They told me I did everything I could and that it wasn’t my play in the camp,” the 19-year-old Brossoit told a thick scrum of reporters in a Calgary hotel hallway. “They thought I played well in the camp.
“Myself, I’m a little confused. You wonder what else you could have done, but it is what it is.”
Was he frustrated at the decision, given his strong play at the brief camp?
“Yeah. It’s always frustrating when you don’t know what else you could have done,” the Surrey, B.C. native said. “I thought I stopped the pucks I needed to stop.”
In fact, head coach Steve Spott of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, made clear to the players it was their body of work with their junior clubs, at previous camps and in the Subway Super Series against the Russian All-Stars that was considered.
On Monday, for a brief few minutes, Brossoit caught a glimpse of the magic that attends the World Junior Championship, which opens on Dec. 26 in Ufa, Russia.
He was taken aback by the media crush surrounding Edmonton Oilers star Nugent-Hopkins as the players arrived.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it at all when I got to the airport,” said Brossoit, a 6th-round choice of the Calgary Flames in the 2011 NHL Draft. “We opened the doors to the terminal and it was pretty hectic.
“Afterwards, you sit back and think it’s pretty expected, considering he’s the first overall pick, played in the NHL and he’s a helluva player.
“That day definitely put it in perspective how big of a stage this is. It just added that much more pressure.”
Shortly after Brossoit surrendered no goals in a 30-minute stint for Team Canada against a group of Canadian Interuniversity Sports AllStars, he reckoned he was handling the pressure well, actually. “I felt good,” he said. “I felt like the goals that did get past me were not my fault.”
Many observers believed Malcolm Subban of the Belleville Bulls was pencilled in as the No. 1 goalie from the start.
The other two goalies will be Jordan Binnington of Owen Sound and Jake Paterson of the Saginaw Spirit.
The NJT selection camp is a pressure cooker where players are urged to let their ability flow, to showcase their best game. Brossoit, who was named MVP of the Western Hockey League championship series last spring after he backstopped Edmonton to a 4-3 series victory, was convinced he had done precisely that.
“It can be hard (not to try to do too much),” Brossoit said. “But the experiences I have been through have helped me do that, to just play my game, not worry about what anyone else was doing and focus on myself.”