Third overall picks with the unique combination of skill and vision that Jonathan Drouin possesses don't grow on trees. Yet, the Tampa Bay Lightning's marquee selection from the 2013 National Hockey League entry draft continues to sit in the press box while players like Vladislav Namestnikov, Cedric Paquette, and Brenden Morrow give the team relatively ineffective minutes. It's a confusing situation, and one that has generated some league-wide attention.
From an on-ice perspective, the merits of Jon Cooper’s decision to continually scratch Drouin have been debated at length. Some believe that the young forward is too raw, or that he still plays a “junior game,… or that he simply isn’t good enough defensively to play in the NHL postseason. Others view the rookie as a player who can help a Lightning team that struggled to score against the Montreal Canadiens for large portions of the series. Consider the following:
Jonathan Drouin scored 1.87 A/60 at 5v5 this year, per Puckalytics. Among players w/ >500 min, that ranks T2 in the LEAGUE.
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) May 12, 2015Granted, some people will be quick to say something like this: “The Bolts beat Montreal! Criticizing Cooper makes no sense now that the group has made it to the third round!!… I think that’s an overly simplistic view of the situation.
Why is it a simplistic view? Because there’s another component at play. The off-ice relationship between Jonathan Drouin and the Tampa Bay Lightning organization could certainly be damaged as a result of what has transpired through 13 playoff games. If you don’t believe this blogger, take it straight from TSN’s Bob McKenzie, who spoke to TSN Drive in Toronto before the Montreal series began:
It’s going to be interesting to see the fallout from all this, because he’s a really, really proud kid. --There’s a phrase I use sometimes, and it’s used for players like Guy Lafleur and others; he’s got this ‘Gallic greatness’ about him. That is, players that are born and raised in the province of Quebec […], some of them have almost an indefinable quality that they believe they’re special, and given the opportunity they do special things. And this kid, by virtue of what he did with MacKinnon in Halifax and all of that, I think he perceives himself in that manner.
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He was the only one of his draft class at the top end that got sent back to Junior for his 18-year-old season. He was the only one, and I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that. But he also understood the circumstances. Tampa is a pretty deep team. So then he finally gets up there and doesn’t play a lot, and when he does a lot of times it was fourth line minutes. And now he’s not playing at all. I’ve got to figure that he’s going out of his mind.
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And this notion that he’s not physical mature enough or he’s not defensive-minded enough, he’s a kid who’s going to say: “Yeah, that’s all well and good, but I’ve got special qualities and you’re not letting me do that.… I have to believe that there’s a huge amount of frustration on his part.
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And, quite frankly, if you look back at that draft from a positional point of view, how much better would the Tampa Bay Lightning be right now had they taken Seth Jones instead of Jonathan Drouin? Maybe they don’t have to trade for Braydon Coburn at the deadline.
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It’s a fascinating dichotomy because these kids do special things, they’re special players. I’ve got to believe that Jonathan Drouin is a special player, and if given the opportunity will do some special things. But he obviously, at this stage of his career, doesn’t have the confidence of his coach, or the coach believes there are better options.
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TSN Drive asks: Can you see a trade coming involving Drouin?
I don’t know. The Tampa Bay Lightning are liable to say: “You know what? Suck it up kid. You’re our property, and you’re going to be a great player for us. But you’ve got to be patient.…
And I could see the kid saying: “Hey, if you don’t have confidence in me I’m sure there are 29 other teams out there that would take me in a heartbeat. So let’s get this done.…
There’s a lot more worth listening to in that McKenzie interview, which is linked above, but I just wanted to highlight some of his main quotes. Remember that this interview took place before the Montreal series started, before he was scratched in favor of Jonathan Marchessault in a pivotal sixth game even with Ryan Callahan’s absence. To use McKenzie’s words, it’s hard not to believe that he’s going out of his mind right now.
With all that taken into consideration, it’s important to start viewing this as more than short-term situation. This is, in fact, a long-term situation. Drouin is viewed as a potential franchise cornerstone for the Bolts. Continually dealing with him in this way is both confounding and confusing, in this blogger's opinion.
It was one thing to scratch him in favor of other Tampa regulars, including Paquette, Namestnikov, and Morrow. But, when the decision came down ahead of Game Six that Cooper was sitting Drouin in favor of Marchessault, alarm bells started ringing. And that’s not meant to be a slight at Marchessault, who was positively awesome in the Game Six victory. Hindsight in this case is 20/20, so it looks like a smart move. On the other hand, though, it’s worth saying that only one of Drouin and Marchessault is likely to be a going concern for the Bolts. It might be time to consider long-term asset management.
The conventional wisdom is that hockey is a ‘win now’ business. That is, nothing else matters if the team wins today. I think Jonathan Drouin’s long-term future with the team might be an acceptable exception here, if what Bob McKenzie says holds even an ounce of truth. And it's not like the team would simply be throwing a bone to the young forward. His regular season play proved that he's good enough to play at the NHL level, as highlighted by that tweet included above.
I didn’t really buy into McKenzie’s ‘fallout’ argument until this week. I figured that Drouin might be upset with being scratched, but that he would ultimately understand moving forward. This decision to keep him out, even with a top-six opening present, changes things. That opinion echoed through Bolts Nation on Tuesday morning, as people questioned how a future face of the franchise could be scratched for a guy with two games played in his National Hockey League career.
The bottom line here is that the Lightning can’t have this turn into a situation in which the player is so unhappy that he wants out of town. Obviously McKenzie’s comments were framed as speculation, but it’s hard not to get the sense that he might be onto something. There very well could be fallout from this, and it will most certainly be interesting to watch.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.