(Buffalo) Before becoming one of the most prominent actors of his generation, Dwayne Johnson revolutionized professional wrestling with his character The Rock. One of his catchphrases: Know your role and shut your mouth. Free translation: know your role and shut up.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
In Gatineau, Tristan Luneau and Noah Warren assimilated 50% of The Rock’s message. Fortunately for us, this is not the second part, otherwise the interviews would have been brief.
Luneau and Warren are therefore very talkative young men, but above all, each knows his role.
Result: the two Olympiques defenders are among Quebec’s best hopes for the next draft. NHL Central Scouting ranks Luneau 24e North American prospect, 9 ranks ahead of Warren, an impressive 6’5″ and 224 lbs. In short, they have a good chance of being claimed in the first two rounds.
The reason why we insist on the importance of knowing your role? Both teenagers are right-handed defenders, on the same team. Impossible, therefore, that they play within the same duo, or that they are both from the first wave of the numerical advantage. When we know how obsessed some young people (and their entourage, let’s be honest) are with points and playing time as the draft approaches, we understand that the situation could have been delicate.
Except that Luneau and Warren have separate identities and they are well aware of it.
Luneau therefore finished the season with 43 points (12 goals, 31 assists) in 63 games and was the most productive back of the Gatineau team. His stats could have been better if he hadn’t had knee surgery last offseason.
“My greatest quality has always been my vision and my hockey IQ,” he says. I watch a lot of hockey, I study defensemen and I like talking to coaches. »
Warren, he amassed 24 points, including 5 goals. His greatest pride? Playing in the first shorthanded unit. “It’s an honor to do this,” he added. His models? K’Andre Miller of the New York Rangers and Brandon Carlo of the Boston Bruins. “Two tall guys, good skaters, sturdy, who get the puck out well,” he describes.
PHOTO DOMINIC CHARETTE, PROVIDED BY THE GATINEAU OLYMPICS
noah warren
Lunaau adds to it.
“The fact that we are so different, it helped, says the Mauritian [de la Mauricie, pas de l’île Maurice]. As we have different roles, we pushed each of our side to improve. Noah is one of the best teammates I’ve had. He could play on the power play in the juniors, he has the talent for that, but he knows that it will probably not be his role in the NHL, so he prefers to perfect his style and he accepts it. I totally respect that. »
For Louis Robitaille, head coach and general manager of the Olympiques, the work began with the draft of the QMJHL in 2020.
“I understood that to build a winning team, you can’t just have a superstar. We need several elements, recalls Robitaille on the phone. Young people today want to have a predefined role before they arrive. My job was to make Clan Luneau and Clan Warren understand what each chair was.
“On draft day, I called Noah and asked him, ‘What are your strengths?’ And he told me: “I’m big, I’m able to defend and I’m going to bring attack with my simple game.” It confirmed my choice. We drafted Tristan at 1er rank and we moved forward to pick Noah at 8e rank. »
The cohabitation between the two hopefuls therefore went well. We could even hypothesize that it gave more visibility to the two youngsters, as well as to their teammates Samuel Savoie (striker, 90e North American hopeful) and Antonin Verreault (forward, 140e).
It’s that when the time comes to choose which match to attend, some recruiters will prioritize the match allowing them to spy on more hopefuls.
Already a model
Noah Warren isn’t drafted yet, but he already understands the influence he can have. “The other day, I was watching my brother’s game. A guy, a little black guy, came to see me to tell me that he liked what I had done with the QMJHL for Black History Month,” he says, a bit embarrassed. He is referring here to a video made with his mother, Magalie Boutin, published last February. Warren assures that he has never been at the heart of a racist incident in the QMJHL, but has experienced it before, especially in the Midget AAA, from a teammate… He and his teammate Emanuelson Charbonneau were targeted. “We were angry, we went to see the coach and the school principal. At first, we didn’t want to say it, we wanted to settle with the guy. It didn’t work, we thought we were going to talk about it. It had consequences. »
Hockey or science?
Tristan Luneau almost never played in the QMJHL since he signed up with the University of Wisconsin Badgers in the NCAA. But he ultimately opted for Canadian junior hockey. He also admits that if a career in hockey had been impossible, he would have opted for the field of science, as did his father and brother. “My father is a chemical engineer in the pulp and paper industry. And my brother is in health biochemistry, in the pharmaceutical field. He tells me about non-digestive enzymes for insects, which can be digested, and which would replace pesticides. It’s big science! “, he says, laughing.
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- Noah Warren is ranked 33e among North American hopefuls.
SOURCE: NHL Central Scouting