Rookie Tournament | Xavier Simoneau, in the shadow of the giants

Xavier Simoneau was amused. It was Thursday, after a morning practice at the rookie tournament in Buffalo. The Canadian had just updated the measurements of the players and Xavier Simoneau was one of those who had “shrunk”. From 5 ft 7 in, he grew to 5 ft 6 in.

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

So, what is his real size? Let’s go straight to the source. “5’6 and ¼…I’m trying to cheat, but it’s not working! he replies.

Simoneau laughs about it, but it’s just one example of the obstacles in his way in hockey.

In a tournament where players of John Kerry’s stature got more attention, Simoneau still stood out. He scored twice on Sunday, troubled the goaltender at another net, had a slew of smart passes to his teammates and delivered inspired forechecking efforts.

Which made Jean-François Houle, coach of the CH hopes this week, say that “it’s very important to have players like him if you want to win games”.

“I did not come here as a tourist, launched Simoneau, after his double on Sunday. I’m trying to make my name and make my way. »

An underestimated contribution

Can Houle count on Simoneau to “win games” this season in Laval? This will be one of the challenges of the camp for the Canadian club-school.

This striker, 191^e player drafted in 2021, has an American League contract only for the upcoming season. He’s just wrapped up a productive junior career, averaging more than a point per game in his last four seasons.

However, it is not for lack of production that the small players generally struggle to get their chance, but much more because of doubts about their ability to hold on physically.

In his first year of draft eligibility, in 2019, Simoneau was shunned by the 31 teams. But the Maple Leafs had invited him to their rookie tournament that summer. Mathieu Turcotte, assistant with the Drummondville Voltigeurs – Simoneau’s club at the time – remembers this episode.

“A member of their organization told me that according to their advanced statistics, Xavier was among those who won the most one-on-one battles in the QMJHL,” says Turcotte, now head coach of the Blizzard du Séminaire Saint- Francois.

Simoneau’s agent, Philippe Bureau, had also heard of this fact. He also remembers his client excelling in “the percentage of plays made in the offensive zone, for example, the number of passes completed, the number of shots that go to the net. That meant he wasn’t making a lot of turnovers.”

“It’s still statistics, we can make them say what we want, Bureau continues. But we saw it at the end of the week: when he is on the ice, what often happens. »

In an interesting statistical analysis, Montreal consultant Jack Han, who once worked for the Leafs, explains that he pushed for Toronto to draft Simoneau. Among the qualities he saw in him, he had rightly named his ability to “initiate physical contact”.

Like Harvey Pinard

So far, Simoneau’s journey is very similar to that of Rafaël Harvey-Pinard. Drafted by the CH at 20, he returned to the juniors for a final season, before obtaining a one-year contract from the American League.

This approach allows a team to save time. The teams have two years to offer an NHL contract to a player from Canadian junior hockey. For the typical case of the player drafted at 18, he will be able to play the two years in question in the junior. But a player claimed at 20, he can no longer return to the junior at 21. The athlete is thus stuck, his only options being Europe or negotiating with the team that drafted him. Since clubs are allowed a maximum of 50 NHL contracts, the one-year deal in the American League allows the decision to be postponed, but limits the player’s bargaining power.

Simoneau will have to work hard, because there are many attackers in the camp. But Harvey-Pinard took his chance and then got a real NHL contract.

“Xavier has always been considered too small. Every time he came up, people were like, ‘He’s good in pee-wee, but it’ll be harder in bantam.’ And so on, recalls Philippe Bureau. He has always channeled his adversity very well to become what he is becoming. »