Positive Steps for Cousins
With the off-ice legal problems that overshadowed his outstanding 2012-13 Ontario Hockey League season behind him, Flyers prospect Nick Cousins has channeled his focus to preparing for his first full professional season. A prolific playmaker at the junior hockey level, Cousins finished third in the OHL scoring race last season with 103 points and second in assists with 76 in 64 regular season games.
The Flyers have made clear that they do not necessarily see the center as a player who will be a future top-six forward in NHL. While he is, in the words of general manager Paul Holmgren, one of those players whom the "puck seems to find" (meaning that he has high-end offensive awareness), Cousins is an average skater with below-average size and strength relative to the majority of centers who go on become bona fide first-line or second-line pivots in the NHL.
At the junior level, he was able to make a lot of seemingly low-percentage plays work. He threaded passes through sticks and skates and often seemed to be the one who came out on the winning end of one-on-one battles with defenders. Give him a little space and there was a good chance he'd create a scoring opportunity.
At the professional level, opposing team defenses and goaltending are of a higher caliber than anything in major junior hockey and the pace of play is much, much faster. Once a player gets to the NHL, passes that often get completed for scoring chances at the lower levels routinely get broken up. Shots that sneaked past goalies or produced rebound opportunities either get blocked down by the defense or gobbled up by the goalie with no rebound. Even "average" NHL opponents skate better, take smarter routes to the puck, read and react faster and possess a higher skill level than all but a fraction of players at the lower levels. Most NHL role-playing forwards were junior scoring-line players at least by the time they played their final season at the lower levels.
That is not to say it's impossible for Cousins' offensive game to translate better than expected to the pro level. The organization wants to be careful not to pigeonhole him as a player who is incapable of being an offensively productive NHLer. Rather, they want him to be able to do others things better so that he can increase his chances of finding an NHL role. If it works out that he eventually becomes a top-six NHL forward, so much the better.
First and foremost, the Flyers want Cousins to understand that, regardless of junior point totals, the majority of players with similar strengths and weaknesses in their games go on to become one of three things: 1) career high-scoring AHLers (or European leaguers) who have trouble sticking permanently in the NHL, 2) players who improve other aspects of their games and find long-term non-scoring roles in the NHL, or 3) one of a small percentage of offensively talented players who spend multiple years in the minor leagues getting bigger, stronger and at least marginally better defensively to eventually become NHL-adequate in those areas. In the meantime, they steadily continue to grow their offensive games and eventually forge lengthy careers as supporting offensive players in the NHL. Vaclav Prospal is an example of this relatively rare category.
High-end examples of the first category of player include names such as Peter White or Denis Hamel. At least they got to play a bit in the NHL. These put up a lot of points in the American Hockey League and dressed in about 200 NHL games over long professional careers, but they were always fringe NHLers with little or no job security even when they spent stints in the top league. They had to try to play checking roles at the top level and were never particularly effective in those roles despite commendable efforts to adapt. White did spend a full season primarily as a fourth line center for Flyers under his former Phantoms coach Bill Barber, but he otherwise rode the NHL-AHL shuttle for the vast majority of his career.
White and Hamel were among the lucky ones, though. At least they got a couple of semi-extended looks at the NHL level. There are many, many other minor league offensive players who never even get that far. The Flyers don't want that for Cousins; they want to give him every chance of being more than that.
The second category of player is the one with the highest opportunity to have a long-term NHL career. Ian Laperriere knows all about it, because he fit in this category. Once a prolific QMJHL offensive force even by that league's high-scoring standards, Lappy had a pair of 40-plus goal seasons, seasons of 96 and 72 assists and years of 140 and 113 overall points and that level. At the minor league IHL level, he was roughly a point-per-game player and broke into the NHL with 13 goals and 27 points in his first 38 games with St. Louis.
All the while, Laperriere realized that as good as he was compared even to the majority of minor leaguers, his offensive skills were not of a high enough caliber to have longevity on an NHL scoring line. Laperriere embraced the opportunity to stand out in other ways. Rather than becoming a fringe scoring-line candidate who spent more time in the minors than the the top level, he became a high-end role player. Lappy was such dogged checker and a tone-setting player who went all-out in every aspect of the game that he dressed in 1,083 regular season NHL games before post-concussion issues forced his retirement.
That longevity in the NHL was a higher badge of honor for Laperriere than a string of big offensive years in the AHL/IHL would have been had he let hubris get the best of him and resisted adapting his game. So what if he only scored 121 goals and 336 points at the top level? He was a valued member of his NHL teams, and that's better than being a one-dimensional minor league scoring star who spends years wondering if or when he's going to get that elusive call-up while teammates who produce fewer points at the minor league level get recalled.
The Flyers organization sees Cousins' most likely future NHL role more as an agitating third-line role player than as a scorer. Correspondingly, Laperriere and others have emphasized the need for Cousins to add muscle, continue working on his skating and especially to work on his defensive play. The latter is the sole reason why Phantoms coach Terry Murray assigned Cousins mostly to the fourth line during his late-season cup of coffee in the AHL last season.
To his credit, Cousins seems to fully understand what the organization wants from him. He has willingly given up his summer to work out in Voorhees, trying to get stronger both on and off the ice. He's taken important first steps toward being better prepared to handle the physical battles and game-pacing demands of pro hockey.
Come next season, don't be surprised if Cousins' rookie point totals are modest, especially in the first half of the year. He is likely going to be deployed by the Phantoms in a bottom-six role at least in the early months of the season so he can continue to focus on improving defensively rather than being tempted to revert to a lot of low-percentage dangling and freelancing. That doesn't mean he'll be shackled offensively. It does mean, however, that if he wants power play time and a top-six role with the Phantoms -- and to advance his chances of an NHL promotion -- he's going to have to earn it through his two-way play.
Another long-range challenge for Cousins will be finding the right position in the pros. When I asked Laperriere at last summer's Development Camp if he thought Cousins could make the transition from junior center to pro-level winger -- or develop the versatility to play any forward spot -- Laperriere noted that he's going to have refine his skating before any of that could be possible.
Here's the thing, though: The Flyers are set with Claude Giroux as their first-line center for many years to come. Brayden Schenn, a natural center, has shuttled between the middle and the wing in his two pro seasons to date but it likely to be a full-time left winger assuming Vincent Lecavalier occupies the second-line center spot. Sean Couturier is the center the Flyers are going to rely upon to be their shutdown defensive guy in the middle. Scott Laughton also projects as a defensive-minded center and is knocking on the door of a full-time NHL spot -- and sooner than Cousins. In the meantime, the versatile Matt Read has shown he can move from wing to center whenever there is an injury in the middle.
Assuming the roster stays that way for awhile, that makes four centers and two swingmen who would get the nod over Cousins on the NHL depth chart. As such, it would behoove him to develop the sort of versatility that allows Read to be plugged into any position or any role (scoring or checking) in the NHL lineup. Cousins will never have Read's breakaway speed, but is a grittier player in other regards.
Add those characteristics to offensive instincts and ability to get under opponents' skin -- it is hardly an uncommon sight to see one or more opponents try to get at Cousins after a whistle -- and there is the potential for Cousins to have the sort of package of abilities that make for a long-term (and, eventually, well-paid) NHL player. He has the chance to become Philadelphia's version of Boston's Brad Marchand, albeit not as speedy.
That transformation from junior playmaker to well-rounded NHL playmaker won't happen overnight, and may not even happen in one full year's time. But Cousins knows what he needs to do and, more importantly, has started to put that knowledge into action. I think that is an encouraging sign for the Flyers and for the player himself.
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Former Flyers forward Ian Laperriere, now the organization's Director of Player Development, will be participating in the Ironman Mont-Tremblant: North American Championship on August 18. Apart from competing in the triatholon, Lappy is raising funds for a variety of charitable causes: the IRONMAN Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, the National Pancreatic Cancer Foundation and Go4theGoal Foundation- Tunes4Teens. Laperriere has set a $10,000 fundraising goal. For more information or to make a donation,
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