Stu Cowan: The Canadiens need Jonathan Drouin to step up his game
Drouin #Drouin
TORONTO — Can Jonathan come out to play?
That’s a question Canadiens fans have been asking a lot since GM Marc Bergevin acquired Jonathan Drouin from the Tampa Bay Lightning three years ago in exchange for defenceman Mikhail Sergachev and then gave the local boy a new six-year, US$33-million contract.
Frustrating is a good word to describe Drouin’s performance since then and it’s also a word former Lightning GM Steve Yzerman must have used more than a few times during his dealings with the talented forward. That includes the time Yzerman suspended Drouin in January 2016 when he refused to report for a game with the Syracuse Crunch after being sent down to the AHL and demanded a trade that eventually came one year later.
Canadiens fans have probably used some more — shall we say — colourful words than frustrating to describe Drouin’s time in Montreal so far.
While Brendan Gallagher has been taking a lot of heat for having zero goals in the Canadiens’ first seven postseason games, Drouin only has one heading into Game 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers Tuesday afternoon at Scotiabank Arena (3 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio). There’s reason to believe Gallagher will break out of his slump because of the way he plays every shift — 100-per-cent effort — and the fact he leads the Canadiens with 31 shots in the postseason, while Drouin has only 12.
Claude Julien stubbornly refused to put Drouin on a line with his good buddy Max Domi this season and also down the stretch last season when Drouin scored only one goal in his last 26 games and the Canadiens missed the playoffs by two points.
Kirk Muller is the interim head coach now while Julien recovers at home from surgery to stent a coronary artery. For the last two games of this series against the Flyers, Drouin and Domi have been on the same line with Jesperi Kotkaniemi at centre. Kotkaniemi scored twice in Game 2, while Domi had three assists and Drouin had one.
In Game 3, the line was on the ice to start the first, second and third periods and Drouin had 17 minutes of ice time — including 2:08 on the power play — but had only two shots on goal. There is definitely some chemistry with this new trio and Drouin made a beautiful setup pass to Domi breaking to the net on the first shift of Game 3, but Philadelphia goalie Carter Hart stopped it en route to a 1-0 Flyers victory.
There are no excuses now for Drouin. He is healthy after an injury-plagued season that included wrist surgery and an ankle problem, limiting him to 27 games with 7-8-15 totals. His teammates need Drouin, who has 1-2-3 totals in the postseason, to start producing more.
The 25-year-old has shown what he can do in the playoffs before, posting 5-9-14 totals in 17 games with the Lightning in 2016 when they advanced to the Eastern Conference final before losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Drouin has natural talent that other players — including Gallagher — can only dream about. The Ste-Agathe native only started playing organized hockey when he was 8, instead playing road hockey about “10 hours a day” he told me in an interview during his first training camp with the Canadiens. He also spent a lot of time on the local outdoor rink, but wearing boots instead of skates.
“I didn’t like skating,” Drouin said during that training-camp interview. “I hated the skating part. … I wasn’t good at it. When I got on the ice, I used to get off really quick. I guess when you’re a kid, you cry and you want to get off.
“I would just stand in front of the net and wait for passes or play goalie,” Drouin recalled. “At one point, my dad said: ‘If you want to play, you’re going to have to take your boots off and put some skates on and go out there. Eventually, he just threw me out there on skates and said: ‘You’re not coming off, no matter what.’ I got used to it and kept going.”
Drouin played his first season of organized hockey at the Novice B level and recalled it was “a little rough.” But by the end of that season, his skating had caught up to the other kids and then he quickly skated past them. Drouin said he first realized how talented he had become in his first season with the midget Lac St. Louis Lions, when he had 22-36-58 totals in 38 games.
The Lightning selected Drouin with the No. 3 overall pick at the 2013 NHL Draft after he had 41-64-105 totals in 49 games with the QMJHL’s Halifax Mooseheads.
Carey Price, the No. 5 overall pick at the 2005 NHL Draft, has been outstanding so far in this postseason with a 1.40 goals-against average, a .953 save percentage and two shutouts. But his record is only 4-3 and the Canadiens are trailing this best-of seven series with the Flyers 2-1 despite the fact Price has only allowed three goals.
Price now needs Drouin and some of his other friends to come out and play with him.
scowan@postmedia.com
twitter.com/StuCowan1
Video: Radulov’s redirect in OT pulls Stars even with Flames (cbc.ca)
Radulov’s redirect in OT pulls Stars even with Flames
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