The leaders of junior and university clubs never hesitate to defend their protégés when they consider them victims of injustice. This is exactly what Mario Durocher, assistant general manager of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, does.
The injustice in question? Justin Poirier, prolific scorer for the Drakkar, was not invited to the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) top prospects game last month, even though, at 17, he sits first in the QMJHL in goals .
“Who decided that?” The chief recruiters? GMs? I don’t really know, but it’s uneven and it’s unpleasant. He is the best scorer in the league. It’s not trivial. The reasons are not there,” railed Durocher, met at the beginning of February in Drummondville.
The facts, first. With 41 goals in 54 games, Poirier is on track to finish the campaign with 51 goals. RDS colleague Stéphane Leroux wrote it last week: it has been almost two decades since a 17-year-old player reached fifty in the QMJHL. His name: Sidney Crosby. This is the logical continuation of what Poirier had accomplished in midget AAA, scoring 33 goals in 37 games. At 15.
Except that Poirier is not a 6’5″ giant like Anthony Mantha, another prolific scorer in the QMJHL, was 10 years ago. He’s more like 5’8″ and 190 lbs. Like many snipers, he is seen as a one-dimensional player.
Since I was young, I have been criticized for things like my defensive play, my height.
Justin Poirier
Knowing this, his draft rankings suffered. The NHL ranks him 73e among North American skaters. If we add the goalkeepers and the Europeans, we understand that the circuit’s recruiting center sees him, at best, as a fourth-round choice.
Among the prospects of the three Canadian junior circuits, he comes at 49e rank, and at 33e among the attackers. Since only 24 attackers were invited to the best prospects match, his absence was logical.
In addition, this ranking is not definitive, since it is the NHL teams which, by survey, determine which players are invited to the hopefuls’ game. If enough clubs had asked, Poirier would have participated, whatever the Recruitment Center said.
In short, there was consensus as to Poirier’s place in the chessboard.
Incomprehension
Still according to the NHL Central Scouting, Poirier comes ninth among QMJHL prospects, which means he was also not selected among the five players participating in this week’s media tour.
His contemporaries on the Cecchini circuit also cannot explain why he is shunned. “Everyone was surprised that he wasn’t invited to the hopefuls’ match. It was a shock. But I know him and I know that it motivates him,” explains defenseman Tomas Lavoie of the Cape Breton Eagles.
The latter uses a recent duel against him as an example to illustrate Poirier’s strength. “He came in front of me, looked behind to see if anyone was following him, and pulled between my legs, on the horizontal bar. It almost moved the goal! »
“People find a lot of faults in him,” laments Raoul Boilard, his teammate at Baie-Comeau. Of course he’s small, but he gets involved, he goes into the corners. He’s a good playmaker, he helps us win, he doesn’t just score. »
PHOTO GUILLAUME LEFRANÇOIS, THE PRESS
Justin Poirier
Another Drakkar player, Alexis Bernier, was also at the Bell Center, with the quintet of LJHMQ prospects. “He’s an underrated guy, maybe for his greatness, but he’s hard to take down. We don’t understand why he’s forgotten, but I’m not worried about him. »
And the main person concerned? Disappointed, surprised?
“A bit of both,” he said to The Press 1er last February. I thought I had my place, so it was a bit of a disappointment. But I’m in the same agency as Jordan Dumais, who wasn’t invited either. It’s a motivation to prove to these people that I had my place. It may be a little slap in the face, but it’s far from over. »
The challenge of diversification
Poirier’s challenge, between now and June, will therefore be to demonstrate that it is not one-dimensional. To demonstrate “one’s second quality”, to use the words of a recruiter. “If your GM always asks you ‘how many 5’7” guys are there in the NHL?, you have to be sure of your shot if you go to bat for the player,” continues this scout.
This is exactly what Mario Durocher is trying to make Poirier understand. The day we met, in Drummondville, Durocher had taken Poirier aside.
“I told him: ‘You have to go get something else. You don’t need to score 75 to prove it. In the scouts’ notebooks, it’s already there. You have to give tools to the Quebec scouts so that they can sell you to the Ontario scouts, so that they can say: he plays well defensively, he finishes his checks.” »
According to Durocher, Poirier must therefore forget the fact that he was ignored in the hopefuls’ match. “In the playoffs, you’re going to see head scouts. At the Memorial Cup, it will be GMs. It will be other people that you can convince to sit there. »