(Quebec) As far back as he can remember, Jakob Pelletier had never suffered a major injury.
In minor hockey, he had played almost all of his club’s games year after year. In the junior ranks, in Moncton and then in Val-d’Or, he missed about twenty games in four years. The American League didn’t wear him out too much either.
Then came a check by Marian Studenic, almost a year ago, in a Calgary Flames preseason game. The contact itself wasn’t necessarily dangerous, but Pelletier’s fall into the boards left him with no chance. Surgery was required to repair his left shoulder, which was left in terrible shape.
Read the article “Jakob Pelletier facing adversity”
The Quebecer had to be patient. Not only was he deprived of his “real” NHL debut, after a 24-game audition the previous season, but he also had to face a long rehabilitation for the first time in his life. Four long months passed before he played again.
“In a year like this, you learn that, in sports, anything can happen. Everything can change in a week, in a day, in a fraction of a second,” he said last Wednesday evening, after a charity match played at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City, as part of the Sunlife ProAm.
After a few games in the American League to get his legs back, he finally started his season in Calgary in February. His return lasted… three games. In the fourth, his second appearance, he injured himself again, again in the “upper body”, which forced him to miss another two weeks.
“When I came back [la première fois]I felt good,” he assures. However, the second injury completely derailed what was left of his season.
“At that point, it went downhill. It was tough,” he said calmly.
His confidence, he admits, was seriously shaken. On his second return, his performances suffered, and so did his ice time. On March 14, he didn’t even play 5 minutes. The day after, against the Montreal Canadiens, his coach Ryan Huska left him out. And a few days later, he returned to the American League, where he finished the campaign. At that point, “the morale was no longer there.”
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jakob Pelletier
If you’re not there mentally, I don’t think you can play 100%.
Jakob Pelletier
His offensive record tends to prove him right. At the end of his career, with the Calgary Wranglers, he collected 12 points in 20 games, including the playoffs. An obvious drop in form for someone who had regularly amassed a point per game since his debut in the American League in 2021.
Life lesson
Fortunately for the 23-year-old striker, time has taken its toll and everything has returned to normal. He is now, he says, back to “100%”, both physically and mentally.
Today he has the necessary “hindsight” to rethink his crossing of the desert last year.
I had never had surgery, and I had never missed more than a week or two. There, for four months, I was watching other people play. I couldn’t practice, I couldn’t do anything.
Jakob Pelletier
He says he got through this ordeal thanks to the support of his family, but also of his compatriot Jérémie Poirier. In October, the defender, who was then playing with the Wranglers, suffered a serious laceration to his wrist that could have ended his career. He was able to return to the game, but not without also undergoing several months of convalescence.
“Both together, as Quebecers, we have crowded [sympathisé]. We pushed ourselves every day to come back stronger.”
Believing he learned a “life lesson” from this adventure, Pelletier says he’s ready to attack as the Flames’ training camp approaches. A restricted free agent, he still doesn’t have a contract for next season, but he’s confident everything will be in order in time.
Without saying that he has to start all over again… there is still a bit of that. In the midst of a partial reconstruction – the finest terminologists will call it a “reset” – the Flames have traded several quality veterans in recent months. If the team seems depleted on defense and in front of the net, it seems on the contrary to be in a situation of surplus in attack, which could hurt Pelletier.
However, it is doubtful that the organization will abandon a player that it drafted in the first round in 2019 (26e in total), and who only asks to prove that he “can play 82 games at the top”.
The small forward speaks candidly about the “breath of fresh air” that will blow through the team, as forwards Connor Zary and Matt Coronato as well as goaltender Dustin Wolf, who grew up with him in the AHL, will want to be part of the lineup in October.
“I think we have a good combination of guys who have been playing well for a long time and young guys who are hungry and want to learn,” he said.
Seeing the passion he displayed in Quebec in a charity match last Wednesday, we understand that among the hungry youngsters among the Flames, we must count Jakob Pelletier.