Drouin is in the same position as Galchenyuk
With the end of the regular season on the horizon, coaches offer optional practices. The more established players usually take a break, that is, the top-9 forwards, the six regular defenders and starting goalie.
But Wednesday noon, among the dozen soldiers at the rink in Brossard, there was Jonathan Drouin. A desire to perfect his game, to work some specific things in the company of rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi? No, not really.
“I played ten minutes yesterday,” Drouin said. A situation that no one envisioned or wanted at the beginning of the season: Drouin is a fourth-line player. His 10:55 of use, Tuesday in Philadelphia, his lowest total of the season. In the previous game, it was his center Kotkaniemi who had that honor.
Drouin had never been the player least employed by his coach since his arrival with the Habs. It had already happened under Jon Cooper with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the opportunity in Montreal was to become the spearhead of the offense.
Marc Bergevin got his hands on Drouin in June 2017 to replace Alex Galchenyuk as center on one of the first two lines. However, a year and a half later, as the Habs fight for a playoff berth, he finds himself on the left wing of the fourth line. Right where Galchenyuk hit the bottom of the barrel at the dawn of the 2017 playoffs.
Drouin is trapped in a vicious circle where the decrease in ice time and the lack of production feed off each other. In the first 47 games, he had never seen his ice time fall below the 15 minute mark. This has happened six times in the last 15 games.
“In the end it’s not me who controls that, it’s the coach who decides if I play 10 or 17 minutes,” commented Drouin. “He has the big end of the stick. It’s not me who makes the trio changes.”
Although this new trio would allow Drouin and Kotkaniemi to play against a weaker opposition, Drouin does not believe that it would necessarily bring them more success offensively…. “The fourth lines on the other teams do not really want to score goals, they only think about playing defensive. So when you play against teams that have a fourth line that only checks , the odds are not great to score.”
Kotkaniemi hopes that chemistry will develop with Drouin. “He’s a great center player. I like playing with him, he’s one of the best players in the league. His passing game and his vision are incredible. It’s going to work well. “
“There are different reasons why they are together and for which we move them during the match, but we do the best we can with what we have,” admitted Julien earlier this week.
Too often this season, Kotkaniemi has had to contend with struggling wingers (Armia and Lehkonen) without really supporting him through his own difficult moments. And now he’s paired with the black sheep, today’s version of Galchenyuk.
Nevertheless, Julien has made his choice: his decisions will serve the entire team and not a single player. “I have to do what’s best for the team first and foremost,” he said Monday, two days after limiting Kotkaniemi’s time at 7:56 against the Hawks. “If I do not nail him to the bench and mistakes cost us a goal or a game, will we forgive the coach saying ‘we did not do the playoffs, but at least Kotkaniemi played?’ No! You have to balance things and in the end, you have to do what it takes to win games.”
Julien said he was happy with how Kotkaniemi responded against the Flyers and how he had behaved. As for Drouin, it’s a different story. Julien is trying to find a way to rekindle Drouin’s fire so he can at least finish the schedule on a good note.
“There is no doubt he feels pressure,” said Julien about Drouin. He is a young man from the place and he wants to do well. These things can weigh heavily. We have seen other players go through the same thing in the past. For our part, it is to encourage him to play hard, to show him that we are behind him. We know he can be a good player for us and we will encourage him to try to return to where he was before. “
While Julien speaks of “encouraging him to play hard”, many fans have seen this too often and want him traded before his value diminishes any further.