Garland hopes stint in NHL isn’t short
Newest Coyote out to prove size not a factor
As a diminutive hockey player, Conor Garland is often painted one of two ways. Either he’s the next Johnny Gaudreau or he’s too small to play in the NHL. There is no middle ground.
The Coyotes list Garland as 5-feet, 10-inches tall. Garland feels that may be a bit generous.
“I’m probably closer to 5-9,” Garland said when asked about his height. “But I’ll take 5-10. Whatever they want to say. If they want to say 5-10, I’ll take 5-10.”
But does a player’s size really matter in every evaluation? For Garland, a fifth-round pick by the Coyotes who joined the big club’s roster for the first time this week, it’s not necessary for him to become the next in the NHL’s recent wave of short-stature superstars. Garland is just trying to fill a role on an NHL club. He doesn’t even think about his height, and evidence suggests it has had little impact on his development curve.
For Garland, a 22-year-old native of Scituate, Mass. (he’ll correct you on the pronunciation; it’s “SITCH-YOU-IT,” by the way), the journey to the NHL has been littered with challenges. Production had never been an issue for Garland, until he transitioned to the professional game in 2016-17.
Coyotes Assistant General Manager Steve Sullivan, who oversees most of the operations with the club’s AHL affiliate in Tucson, said Garland had some trouble adjusting to the transition from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and had to work on breaking certain habits with the Roadrunners.
Many assumed these struggles were likely due to his size, but according to Sullivan, that wasn’t really the case. Although his height was a convenient scapegoat for armchair evaluators, it wasn’t what kept Garland from producing in the AHL.
“I think the first year was a tough year for him in Tucson,” Sullivan said of Garland, who had previously led the QMJHL in scoring over his final two seasons. “He just came out with a lot of juniors habits and had a hard time breaking those habits. They weren’t pro habits, so he had a hard time breaking them. It took us a long time to get him understanding that what works in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League doesn’t work in the American Hockey League.
“There were a lot of pucks being turned over, so what he was giving us from the offensive side wasn’t matching up to what he was costing us on the defensive side. As a result, there was a lack of trust from the coaches, and probably rightly so.”
Garland went back to Tucson last season and found his stride in the second half of last season when the team acquired several players at the trade deadline to aid the Roadrunners’ eventual playoff run. Both Sullivan and Garland agreed that sparked a huge uptick in performance.
“We had a roster shakeup that changed some things last year when we acquired Carter Camper,” Garland said. “I ended up having him as my center and I was playing with (Mario) Kempe and ‘Crouser’ (Lawson Crouse) as my left wingers for most of that second half.
“That’s where my season kind of took off in the second half and into the playoffs. Having two linemates like that … You get to learn from their skill and you pick things up.”
Garland finished with eight goals and 19 assists in 27 regular-season games last year and totaled five points (one goal, four assists) in nine postseason games and was “by far our best player in the playoffs,” according to Sullivan.
If it weren’t for a broken hand suffered during training camp, Garland may have even had a shot to crack the opening night roster. He was among a select few prospects that caught the eye of Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet.
“He wasn’t cut,” Sullivan said. “We were going up to (Kelowna, B.C.) Canada with a set amount of players and he was going to be part of that group going if it wasn’t for the broken hand. … And then he went back down and understood what he had to do, and it hasn’t hurt him offensively.”
This season, Garland has tallied 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) in 18 games with the Roadrunners. Both Sullivan and Tocchet used the word “earned” when discussing why Garland was called up.
But Garland didn’t grow over the last three years, so what allowed him to finally find his footing in a professional setting? According to him, he “just figured out the game,” but what does that actually mean?
“He’s a puck-possession based hockey player,” Sullivan said. “He’s got a great motor. His compete level is high. He’s got a heavy stick, so he can get under people’s hands to retrieve pucks. And he’s got great vision. From the dots down, he can make a lot of elite plays. We like his execution. He’s a player who is kind of intriguing. We’ve got to find out what we’ve got in Conor, and whether his game translates to the NHL level.”