Before each game, after putting on his uniform and before leaving for the arena, Antonin Verreault takes out his cell phone and watches a highlight video of Sidney Crosby. Always the same.
Verreault is the QMJHL’s top scorer with 93 points in 57 games this season.
Are these two facts interrelated?
Impossible to know, obviously. So let’s look at something more concrete to explain the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies striker’s breakout season, who does not yet belong to any National League team.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Antonin Verreault
And there is something concrete. Because Verreault has gone through a number of challenges in recent years.
Like many young Quebecers, the Mirabel native has always been a hockey fan. Unlike many, however, he is interested in more than the Canadian.
“Every evening, there are two or three matches [sur ma télé]whether it’s the Canadian or another team,” he told The Pressduring a meeting within the walls of the Sports-Rousseau Center of Excellence, on the eve of a clash against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.
Verreault keeps up to date with all the results, from the QMJHL to the National League, including the Ontario League and the American League. “Yes, it’s to improve myself, but it’s also because I like it,” he says.
You will therefore not be surprised to learn that Verreault, 2e 2020 QMJHL draft choice, dreams of the National League.
In the summer of 2021, after an excellent rookie season with the Gatineau Matériaux, he found himself paired with Connor Bedard and Dylan Guenther on the same trio in an U17 tournament. This is a great way to kick off his first year of eligibility for the NHL draft.
PHOTO GHYSLAIN BERGERON, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Antonin Verreault (43), while playing for the Gatineau Olympics, in a match against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada on March 20, 2021
The following season, still with the Olympics, Verreault had a good first half of the campaign, with 26 points in his first 30 games.
This is where the “worst year of [sa] life” has begun.
Bad luck
Without really knowing how, Verreault injured his left wrist before Christmas. The pain came on suddenly during a match.
The next game, I played and I scored two goals, so I just kept playing on it.
Antonin Verreault
The pain never left him again. In this draft year, he wanted to miss as few games as possible, especially since he had already missed a few games due to a “small shoulder injury” before Christmas. So he “endured.”
In January 2022, the QMJHL paused its activities due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Quebec. When activities resumed in February, Verreault collected 20 points in 26 games.
“There were still a lot of things that went well,” he remembers, “except that when you’re a small player, if you don’t have the best season at 17, sometimes it’s a little harder. »
Verreault met with almost every National League team in preparation for the draft, and many of them were unaware that he had played half the season with an injury. Injury which actually got worse; it was ultimately a break, he was able to confirm after his season. For three months, he wore a cast.
When the day came for rounds 2 to 7 of the National League draft, in July 2022, Verreault sat in front of the television. And he waited.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Antonin Verreault
It lasted four hours, but I would tell you that in my head, it lasted 30 minutes. I didn’t say a word. When it ended, it really wasn’t fun. I just went and cried in bed after that.
Antonin Verreault
To make matters worse, during the summer, doctors discovered that his wrist had deteriorated. An operation would be necessary. The Edmonton Oilers invited him to their training camp, but he was unable to attend.
Resilience
Verreault wore a cast for three more months, missing the start of the 2022-23 QMJHL season.
“I was discouraged, but after two or three days you have to get used to the idea. I just really focused on improving my skating and my leg power in the gym. »
Every morning for three months, he got out of bed at 5:30 a.m., arrived at the arena at 6:15 a.m. and jumped on the ice from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. with a power skating coach from Gatineau, Guy Desjardins.
It wasn’t just me, there was Olivier Nadeau, who was also coming back from an operation. We really pushed each other, whether in the gym or on the ice.
Antonin Verreault
Verreault returned to the game at the end of November, only to receive a puck in the face some 20 games later. Again, jaw surgery was necessary. He missed three more weeks of play.
The young man finally scored 10 goals and 19 assists in 38 season games last year, then 9 points in 13 playoff games with one of the best teams on the circuit. After missing the majority of the season, however, he had to settle for a supporting role.
When the year ended, Verreault asked to be traded so he could help another team win, rather than being part of the Olympic youth movement. That’s exactly what he’s doing this season with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, who were fourth in the Cecchini circuit at the time of writing.
Pleasure
For the first time in a long time, Antonin Verreault can play a full season. As soon as he arrived in Rouyn, “he just had fun going on the ice,” he tells us. As for the statistics, they are the fruit of all the work done over the last two years. The fruit of his perseverance. Here he is today, the QMJHL’s leading scorer, with 93 points in 57 games.
As for what happens next, who knows what might happen? In hockey, all the paths are different. Antonin Verreault knows it now.
“Coaches often say that the game is fair [fair] when you play the right way, he said. I think it’s the same thing in life: when you do things the right way, it often comes back to you. »
And clearly, he owes a lot more to his resilience than to the Sidney Crosby video.