Evan Rawal
Perhaps no one the Colorado Avalanche brought in this summer comes with more intrigue than Jonathan Drouin.
He’s not their most important acquisition, but his history with Nathan MacKinnon has fans dreaming of the good old days.
So with Drouin arriving, I decided to watch some of his games from last year. A lot of them.
8 games and 139 shifts, to be exact. And let me tell you, the Montreal Canadiens were not an easy team to watch.
These viewings showed both the good and the bad of Drouin’s game. The end result is 28 clips (and a lot of words) that showcase both where Drouin can help the Avalanche, and why this is far from a slam-dunk signing.
We’ll start with the good, get to the not-so-good, and end with my analysis of how I think Drouin can be best utilized in an Avalanche uniform.
THE GOOD
Yes, He Still Has That Vision And Playmaking Ability
Let’s face it – Drouin would not have gotten a contract from the Avalanche if he didn’t have the vision and playmaking ability anymore, both at even strength and on the powerplay. I’d be surprised if he found his way onto the top powerplay unit for Colorado, but anything is possible. Montreal used him a fair bit on the powerplay, even on the point at times, and he’s still got the ability to hit the seam pass across the ice. That’s a great skill to have with the man advantage, but Colorado really doesn’t use their second unit a ton.
The 5th clip here is an impressive pass by Drouin. He’s under pressure, and sends a perfect dime across the ice for the game-tying goal from Caufield. I also like the 4th clip. It starts with a nice forecheck by Drouin, which is not something I’d expect a ton of. After Armia digs the puck out, he finds Drouin across the ice. Drouin fans a bit, but corrals the puck and finds the lane to send it back to Armia, who fans on the puck. A better player might have finished the pass, but it’s still a good look.
Drouin’s 1.37 assists-per-60 at even strength would have been good for third-best on the Avalanche, behind only MacKinnon and Nichushkin. He’s really not much of a threat on the goal scoring side, but he’s very capable of finding an open teammate, even through tight windows. He can work with a good finisher, and someone who understands how to find space on the ice.
Skill And Creativity
There’s a time and place for dumping the puck in (which we’ll see below), but for the most part, the skilled players on the Avalanche like to carry it into the offensive zone with possession as much as possible. Drouin can play that way as well, as we see in the first two clips. The second clip is a nice zone entry and delay, as he waits for his teammates to support him. Once they get close enough, he sends it down low to them, and Montreal maintains possession.
Drouin could move around a fair bit, but on the wing, he was pretty good at hitting his teammates with speed on the breakout. His tendency to look for that pass also got him into some trouble, too.
A Little Versatility
I knew he was still being used a bit at center, but I was surprised at how much he was used there last season. Of the 8 games I watched, he spent time at center in about half of them. I’m not sure how I feel about him there, but it never hurts to have a little versatility. That’s also a way for him to make himself valuable to the coaching staff. Let’s be honest, there are still some question marks down the middle for the Avalanche. If Johansen struggles, or if the staff wants to move Colton around the lineup a bit, having someone else on the NHL roster with experience at center is a good thing.
More Effort Than You’d Think
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I saw more effort, especially defensively, than I thought I would. He isn’t the toughest player to play against, and the execution wasn’t always there, but I thought his effort levels were fine. He back-checked pretty hard, and one thing I noticed was that his competitiveness ramped up from time to time. I wonder if we’ll see more of that playing with a guy like MacKinnon, who expects a lot from his teammates. No one will ever mistake him for Artturi Lehkonen, but I don’t know if “lazy” is a word I’d use for him. As I’ll point out below, he does have a tendency to stop moving his feet, which rarely leads to anything good.
The Not-So-Good
Easy To Knock Off The Puck
It can’t all be positive.
This one is hardly going to come as a surprise, because at this point in his career, he kind of is what he is, but yes, it doesn’t take much to knock him off the puck. The skill and the hands are there, but he’s not going to be the most difficult player to play against, and when physically challenged, he will give up the puck. If he’s got time and space to make a play, he can make it, but that’s the case for a lot of NHL players. Don’t expect a wizard on the boards, or someone who can hold off bigger defenders. That’s just not who he is.
Pure Perimeter Play
You can probably see it on most of the clips, but you are not likely to find Drouin around the crease inside of games. In the shifts I watched, it was very rare to see him go near the net. Instead, he drifts around the perimeter of the ice, and looks to make plays from there, a lot of times waiting for the puck to find him. Not always the best recipe for success, but as I’ll get to at the end, the Avalanche have a few players he can play with that can help make up for this deficiency.
The shift above is an example of his perimeter play. He’s not involved in any way, and just kind of floats around the offensive zone until his shift ends. Unfortunately, you get a lot of shifts like this throughout a game, where he’s just another body on the ice. He’s not really going to be the guy who drives the play offensively.
Not Exactly A Forechecking Wizard
I don’t think anyone was ever expecting Drouin to be some forechecking god, but some of the angles he was taking on the forecheck were just bizarre. It made for some very easy breakouts for the opposing team.
In clip one, as F3, he drifts too far into the zone, and Vegas beats them for an easy 3-on-2, when that third Vegas forward was his responsibility. And in the other two clips, as the F2 on the forecheck, he just kind of floats up the boards, giving the opposition some pretty easy breakouts up the middle. He gets bumped into on one of those clips, but at that point, he had already been beaten.
Too Dependent On Skill
Yes, Drouin can still make some incredible passes, simply because the skill level is so there. That also gets him into a fair bit of trouble, because he sometimes wants to make the difficult play, rather than the easy one. And on all four of these turnovers, he’s not really moving his feet.
In clip two, rather than eat the puck on the boards, or send it behind the net to his teammate, he tries a very low-percentage pass that goes right to Tampa Bay. On clip three, he doesn’t really have any room, and stops moving his feet. He wants to enter the zone with possession, but that’s not always going to be there. A dump into the corner to the streaking Anderson was the play here, as opposed to trying to thread a pass through multiple defenders in the neutral zone.
And in the final clip, he’s just sitting flat-footed in the neutral zone and tries to send a pass all the way across the ice. That’s just too easy for the opposition to read, and it results in a turnover, and a good chance for Seattle. Even if the pass wasn’t deflected, it looked like it had very little chance of connecting.
Turnovers like this will not get him in the good graces of the coaching staff.
Stick Checking
Again, hardly a surprise, but anyone expecting Drouin to body up defensively needs to recalibrate those expectations. He mostly uses his stick, and when you do that, you leave yourself open to some penalties. Drouin draws just as many penalties as he takes, so it’s kind of a wash, but these are the types of penalties he does take. Not exactly the ones coaches love.
How The Avalanche Can Best Utilize Drouin
It’s all about expectations, and it’s important to keep in mind that Drouin will be playing for the team at close to a league minimum salary. While they did make it a point to sign him on July 1, the price likely played a big role in that. It’s a very low-risk, high-reward move by the Avalanche.
That being said, I think there’s a chance for Drouin to succeed in Colorado. He still has the skill and ability to keep up with some of high-end talent on the Avalanche, but it might be all about putting him in the right situation. And in my opinion, after watching and analyzing his game, if he’s in the top six, he NEEDS a Nichushkin or Lehkonen on his line to be successful. I just have a very hard time seeing a Drouin-MacKinnon-Rantanen or Drouin-Johansen-Rantanen combination being effective. Sure, the talent level of those three might create some fun chances, but someone on their line has to do the dirty work.
We all expect him to get an opportunity with MacKinnon, but Val or Lehkonen has to be the other guy on the wing. One example I’ll give is a play the Avalanche run a lot, especially when Toews and Makar are on the ice with MacKinnon, and that’s where Nate ends up at the blueline for a screened shot. The reason that play has been successful over the years is because his two wingers, whether it be Landeskog, Nichushkin, Rantanen, or Lehkonen, are usually digging the puck out of the corner and crashing the net to create a screen. That’s just not Drouin’s game, so the other guy on the line has to be willing to do that work. With less chaos around the net, a play like this simply won’t be as effective.
Even beyond all that, a line with Drouin on it will need a (skilled) grunt worker, not just to help out defensively, but also for the forecheck. Luckily, the Avalanche have two of the best in Nichushkin and Lehkonen, and that’s why I think Drouin has a real opportunity succeed. There are other combinations I could see working, but they all involve either of those two, or Colton, on his line.
It really would not take much for him to vastly outplay that contract. Since 2016, he’s never had a season where he averaged below .5 points-per-game. At $825k, you’d absolutely take that.
Beyond what’s already been discussed, there are other factors at play here, and we really won’t know if they’ll have an impact positively or negatively until things get going.
How big will a fresh start in a new city be for him? Between the crazy hockey market, what Montreal gave up to acquire him, and the contract they subsequently gave him, there was a lot of pressure on Drouin to perform, and when he didn’t, things went sour quickly. He needed a change, and that pressure is all gone now. That seems like it could be a good thing, but we’ll have to wait and see if it truly is.
Another factor is the culture and structure of Colorado. Montreal just has not been a very good team for years. They fluked their way to the finals during the strange COVID year, but beyond that, they haven’t been any good. In watching their games, they played with very little structure. That’s not the case for the Avalanche, and the core of this team holds their players to a very high standard. Will that be a good or bad thing for Drouin?
Overall, after watching a lot of Drouin over the last week, I’m cautiously optimistic about his chances to succeed in Colorado. It’s not something I’d bet my life savings on, but I came away more impressed than I thought I would. In addition to what I saw, I believe Colorado has the personnel to put him in the right positions to succeed, as long as he earns it. And if he can’t get it done here, around this much talent, then I’m not sure where else he’ll be able to get it done.