DESLAURIERS’ FEEL-GOOD STORY WORTH LOT OF INK
Valleyfield native wears heart on his sleeve and is in the midst of career year with Habs
“The future will be whatever you make it”
Those words are tattooed on the left arm of Nicolas Deslauriers — words his grandmother would always tell him as a young boy growing up in Valleyfield. Now it looks like Deslauriers is making a nice future for himself with the Canadiens.
In what has been a disappointing season for the Canadiens,
Deslauriers is turning into a feel-good story about a local boy making good.
Deslauriers has scored six goals in 24 games with the Canadiens after they acquired him from the Buffalo Sabres Oct. 4 in exchange for defenceman Zach Redmond and then sent him to the American Hockey League’s Laval Rocket. Deslauriers was later called up by the Canadiens to add a physical presence, but has done much more than that as a fourthliner, scoring as many goals as first-line teammate Jonathan Drouin, but in 15 fewer games.
Deslauriers’s six goals — including one in Monday night’s 5-4 overtime loss to the New York Islanders — have come on only 29 shots, giving him a teambest 20.7 shooting percentage. He is also plus-10, the best plus/ minus rating on the team. His 101 hits rank second on the Canadiens to Jeff Petry’s 105, but the defenceman has played 20 more games than Deslauriers.
The future will be whatever you make it.
“When people ask me how many tattoos I have, I can’t say how many,” Deslauriers, who has sleeve tattoos on both arms and much more ink on other parts of his body, said after practice Tuesday in Brossard. “It’s a lot. I think maybe it’s a way I express myself, just getting inked up. Sometimes maybe it looks bad ass, like people say, but it’s the way I express myself with meaningful things to put on my body.”
The six-foot-one, 215-pound Deslauriers is a physically imposing figure both on and off the ice, but has a warm smile, bright blue eyes and speaks with a soft voice. The 26-year-old admitted he’s surprised to have six goals after getting none last season in 42 games with the Sabres.
“I think the difference is that I’m capitalizing on the chances I have,” said Deslauriers, who was a defencemen with the QMJHL’s Rouyn-Noranda Huskies when the Los Angeles Kings selected him in the third round (84th overall) at the 2009 NHL draft. “I’m not trying to be a goal-scorer. I try to finish my hits and sometimes it gives me more space in the O zone and I’ve been lucky lately.
“I know I want to bring energy every shift. I want to try and finish a hit every shift and bring momentum in that way. My main point is to get better every game and just prove that I can still be effective in any kind of way on the ice. I feel good on and off the ice, so maybe that’s why my game has been going good.”
Being close to extended family and friends again has helped after four years living in Buffalo.
A couple of years ago, Deslauriers and his wife Joanie purchased what was supposed to be a summer home in Berthierville, but has become more than that now for a family that includes a three-year-old daughter and a son who is 19 months.
Since Berthierville is located about 80 kilometres from Montreal, Deslauriers has kept a room at a hotel near the team’s Brossard practice rink where he can sleep the night before and after games. Deslauriers spoke recently about having a post-game dinner at a restaurant owned by a friend in Brossard’s Quartier DIX30 when his face suddenly popped up on one of the big-screen TVs.
“I’m at home sometimes watching SportsCentre or something like that and you see your face pop up and it catches you off guard,” Deslauriers said Tuesday. “When I was in Buffalo, you wouldn’t see your face once. It’s fun, but it’s kind of awkward.”
If Deslauriers keeps playing the way he has, he will have to get used to it. In the meantime, he has found a new home much closer to the Bell Centre where he will move with his family next month.
This entire experience with the Canadiens has been like a dream for Deslauriers since hockey wasn’t even his favourite sport growing up and he was never an elite player as a kid. His first love was baseball and he was very good at it, but after making the midget triple-A Châteauguay Patriotes as a sixth or seventh defenceman for the 2006-07 season, Deslauriers decided to quit baseball and focus on hockey.
It turned out to be a very good decision. Deslauriers is in the final season of a two-year, US$1.55-million contract and can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
“I think every day I put this jersey on, I always think about when I was younger,” he said. “It’s not just for me, it’s for the family, the friends that I used to play with. We all watched the Canadiens. It’s a big dream for me, but at the same time it’s for everybody that was connected to me when I was younger.”
Including his grandmother.
I try to finish my hits and sometimes it gives me more space in the O zone and I’ve been lucky lately.