Montreal Canadiens: Jonathan Drouin is still a developing player

A lot of players on the Montreal Canadiens are not performing as well as we’d hoped including Jonathan Drouin, but he still has time to grow.

There were three factions of the Montreal Canadiens fan base when it came to reactions to the Jonathan Drouin trade. Some were ecstatic, others disappointed at the loss of Mikhail Sergachev, and many were skeptical that he could play center. We’re 39 games into the season, and fans are not happy with the 23-year-old’s production.

However, I think something that a lot of us, myself included, has done is set expectations too high. We looked at his 21 goals and 32 assists from last season and automatically thought he could do that with the Habs. We went to bed thinking about him running the team’s power play and all the points that would come his way from setting up Shea Weber and Max Pacioretty for goals.

What we failed to keep in our minds was that this would be his first season ever as a center and that all that success was on the wing. Granted young players start their NHL careers on the wing and are slowly transitioned to the middle all the time. Recent examples of this are with Drouin’s former junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon or Brayden Schenn in St. Louis.

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Everyone comes to speed on different terms. As frustrating as it is to see that Drouin only has five goals, he’s still a developing player. Pierre Lebrun of The Athletic tweeted a couple of days ago that when speaking with MacKinnon on the phone, he stressed that Habs fans need to be patient with him.

If that’s true, then we may not see what we fully expected from him until next season, which is fine by me. We’ve already seen the signs of how special of a player he could be. Paul Byron and Artturi Lehkonen could have a lot more goals if they are able to complete the plays Drouin sets up for them.

Right now, Drouin has to make the responsibilities of being a center become second nature. Once that happens, the goals will come.

Next: Gallagher on Pace for a Career Year

Do you think that it will just take time for Drouin to be the player we hoped he would be? Let us know in the comments below.