Drouin’s big rise to stardom
What Jonathan Drouin accomplished by being one of two 17-year-olds to make the Canadian team for the world junior hockey championship is all the more remarkable when you consider how he got there.
It was just last December when Drouin made the leap from the midget Triple-A Lac St. Louis Lions to majorjunior hockey with the Halifax Mooseheads.
“I don’t know who, or if anyone has ever done that in 365 days to go from midget to the world juniors. It’s a huge jump,” said Jon Goyens, Drouin’s former coach with the Lions in Dollard des Ormeaux, Que.
A left-winger, Drouin was picked to play for Team Canada last week along with Nathan MacKinnon, his 17-year-old linemate with the Mooseheads. Drouin has been averaging two points a game this season — the highest average in the Canadian Hockey League.
His head coach with the Mooseheads doesn’t believe Drouin was on Hockey Canada’s radar last summer for the selection camp.
But Dominique Ducharme said what Drouin has done with the Mooseheads forced Hockey Canada to invite him to camp in Calgary “and then from there he made the most out of it.”
Drouin really took off last season in the QMJHL playoffs, then picked up where he left off and has continued to improve, Ducharme said.
He highlighted Drouin’s vision on the ice and his “incredible hands.”
“I’ve never seen a player do things like he’s able to do with the puck,” Ducharme said.
Drouin is also a competitor — a guy who always wants to make the difference and improve.
Drouin played for the Lions for a season and a half. His skill set is pretty much off the chart, Goyens said. But it’s something that he works at on and off the ice.
“It’s also something he continually thinks about,” the Lions coach added. “He doesn’t just randomly stickhandle. He actually thinks, ‘You know, if I put the puck on the back side of my blade and I do this, I can get around the guy this way.’
“On top of his puck skills, one of his greatest skills is how well he protects the puck. And I think that’s what allows him to beat a lot of players,” Goyens said, noting Drouin is very deceptive with his body movements and head fakes.
Team Canada plays its first pre-competition game against Finland on Thursday (7:30 a.m., TSN, RDS), leading up to the world junior championship, which kicks off on Boxing Day in Ufa, Russia.
Drouin has been practising on the second line with Ryan Strome and Brett Ritchie, both from the Niagara IceDogs.
According to TSN, Team Canada coach Steve Spott said last weekend that he had no option but to give Drouin a shot at nabbing a top-six forward position.
Drouin was picked second overall in the 2011 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League draft, but only joined the Mooseheads in early December last year, opting instead to stay with the Lions. He was contemplating whether college would be the right route and whether he was physically ready to play at the next level, Goyens said.
Drouin has attended Lions hockey schools and been with them for years at their elite hockey camp, Goyens added.
“He’s probably the biggest rink rat I’ve ever coached,” Goyens said.
At the hockey schools, even if Drouin was a peewee-aged kid, Goyens said he would go on the ice with atom kids, then with the peewee, bantam and midget groups.
“Sometimes he’d skate seven, eight hours a day just doing the same thing at every level,” Goyens said.
“And he always had the energy for it.”
NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary list for next June’s entry draft ranks MacKinnon and Drouin No. 1 and 2, respectively, among draft-eligible skaters in the QMJHL.
Ducharme kept a close eye last week on the Team Canada selection camp in Calgary, watching the games on the Internet.
“I was very proud and happy for them because they showed up there and they didn’t care if they were younger than the other guys,” Ducharme said.