L’heureux has high hopes for NHL draft
Zachary L'heureux has a chance to extend an impressive tradition for the Halifax Mooseheads.
The talented winger is ranked as a potential firstround pick for next weekend's NHL draft, which would put him in some impressive company. In the past eight years, seven Halifax players have gone in the opening round - Nathan Mackinnon (first overall, Colorado Avalanche, 2013), Jonathan Drouin (third, Tampa Bay Lightningh, 2013), Nikolaj Ehlers (ninth, Winnipeg Jets, 2014), Timo Meier (ninth, San Jose Sharks, 2015), Nico Hischier (first, New Jersey Devils, 2017), Filip Zadina (sixth, Detroit Red Wings, 2018) and Justin Barron (25th, Colorado, 2020).
Most scouts have L'heureux rated to go in the 20-30 range but there are a few that have him as high as the mid-teens.
"It's going to be an exciting time," L'heureux said. "I'm trying not to be too nervous or too stressed out about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a great day for my family and my friends and myself. I'm obviously excited to go through it but also just to have it happen so I can take the next step."
Like the 2020 draft, this year's event will not be in person because of COVID-19 restrictions. Next Friday's first round and the remaining six rounds on the following Saturday will be done virtually with prospects watching from their homes so there won't be the usual in-rink hoopla like traditional drafts.
"I was able to experience it in the Q with going up on the stage and everything else so I'm grateful I was able to at least do that," L'heureux said. "It would've been fun to be in the rink again for this one but I think now that I'm able to have more family and more friends around, that's a nice part about doing it this way so I'm looking at that in a positive way.
"I'll be in my basement with as many friends and family as I'm allowed. I want to respect the COVID guidelines and make sure I'm under the amount of people that we're allowed but it's going to be a great day."
It will also be a highly unconventional draft because of the extreme limitations on scouting this past season. Some leagues, like the OHL, didn't operate at all in 202021 so scouts had to rely on old evaluations, while also trying to compare players from different parts of the world based only on video impressions.
"They have the toughest jobs right now out of everybody," L'heureux said of the scouts. "We would do a lot of zoom interviews or phone calls, just checking in to make sure all of their information was up to date. You talk to scouts who hadn't been able to see you play live this year so it's definitely an interesting draft compared to most years and it'll probably go down for the ages as a draft that had a lot of surprises and unexpected things happen.
"But like I said, they had a really tough job this year so every time I talked to them I wanted to be honest about myself and tell them what kind of guy I am and what kind of player I am and make sure we were on the same page. I wanted them to know the player they saw in person a year ago and then on video this year is who I really am."
It's true most of the NHL team scouting directors were unable to see L'heureux play in person this year but there were plenty of area scouts at the Scotiabank Centre and other Maritime rinks to get live viewings. The Mooseheads managed to pull together a fairly realistic schedule by playing 43 regular season games, which led the QMJHL and the entire Canadian Hockey League.
"It could've gone a different way so I feel very fortunate that I was able to have a full season and I think I was able to show the scouts I did progress a lot," L'heureux said. "My season got better as the games went along and I think I really laid it on the line and did everything I could to control what was in my hands in the moment. Under the circumstances with all the restrictions and only being able to play a couple of teams for months at a time, I think I did as much as I could to show teams I'm worth picking."
L'heureux was also fortunate with his playing situation in Halifax. He opened his QMJHL career on a stacked veteran Moncton Wildcats team but came to the Mooseheads in a trade a year ago as a key piece in their rebuild. The five-foot-11, 195-pound sniper got to play big minutes all year and was hard for any scout to miss on a nightly basis because of his robust style of play and constant presence on the ice.
"Coming from Moncton and maybe being more in a passenger seat there last year, I was able to observe a lot of great veterans we had on our team and learn from them," he said. "When I got to Halifax I realized pretty much right away I'd get to play in just about every situation and I didn't want to take that for granted. I knew that could change at any time so I just wanted to work hard to keep playing on the PK, power play, at the end of periods and at the beginning of periods; all that stuff.
"I really tried to stay focused on laying it all on the line to help my team win games. We had a young team and it wasn't always easy but I think we had a great season and we learned a lot and got closer as a core group. Going into next year there are a lot of reasons to be excited."
The Mooseheads played their final game of the season on April 17 so L'heureux has had plenty of time to prepare for the draft experience. He doesn't go looking for rankings but jokes that his friends send them to him so he can't help but be aware of what is being said and written about him heading into next weekend.
The range of projections has him going anywhere from the middle of the first round to the middle of the second.
"Of course I'm curious, like any other kid, and I want to look at some of what's out there," he said. "There are rankings all over the place and I know that; everybody knows it. But some guys haven't even played 10 games this year and will get drafted so it's not something I look at too closely. But even though I don't pay attention to it a lot, it's still obviously cool to see your name out there and think that once draft day comes around that could be you getting picked."