Montreal Canadiens: Jonathan Drouin Deserves One Last Chance

Who is to blame?

Whenever a situation comes up like this, the question is where does the blame lie? Is it because Drouin just isn’t the player everyone thought he was? Is it Bergevin’s fault for giving up all that he did? And then signing him to make Drouin the most expensive of Montreal’s forwards at the time.

One thing that I feel comfortable in saying is that Drouin is injury prone. He has missed 59 games just with wrist injuries since 2020. He has also missed games due to illness, upper body injuries and personal reasons. Without question, that is a lot of games over a short time. He has played just 105 games over the last three seasons.

But there has been a lot of hatred and bile and ridicule pointed towards Drouin that doesn’t necessarily seem fair.

There is plenty of things to blame hockey players for. In the last game that Montreal and Toronto played, William Nylander failed to backcheck on David Savard of all people, and it resulted in a goal and flipped the whole game on its head. There is no good reason why Nylander couldn’t have backchecked against Savard, so the blame goes solely on him.

Or that time that Mitch Marner flipped the puck over the glass while on the penalty kill. In the middle of the ice. With no one pressuring him. There was no reason for that, and the blame lies solely with Marner.

I guess those are both Toronto Maple Leafs examples, but its so easy. I guess you could say if a defender picked up the puck and threw it directly into his own net that it would be totally in fault of that play. But I don’t know what kind of player would do that…

But injuries are a different beast. Because what really makes a player injury prone? Is it genetic predisposition? Is it toughness? Should you just play through the pain? Because we saw what happened when Shea Weber played through multiple injuries during last year’s playoff run.

There are many different deficiencies in Drouin’s game that are worth pointing out. He can be streaky when he is on the ice, disinterested in the defensive zone, float-y in the offensive zone, and can struggle to provide offense on his own.

And it is important when analyzing Drouin and his career to mention that he is injury prone, but you have to be careful with the language used. I don’t feel that any of the injuries he has suffered has been ‘his fault’, if you can call any injury his fault.

Drouin does not play any sort of physical game in the slightest. He isn’t going out and looking for trouble. But the way that certain people seem to speak about him, it seems like it is all his fault and he is such a terrible player for being injured again.

Why Drouin can be much better

So why does Drouin deserve another chance? A part of it is just what else are you going to do with him? The Canadiens are not going to get anything for Drouin if he is traded away in the offseason, and I don’t see a big enough point to buy out his contract.

Because Drouin only has one year left on his contract, and I think it will be hard to see Drouin back in a Canadiens uniform after next year. But it is possible that he could return with a fantastic year and convince Kent Hughes that he could be a decent skilled depth option.

Part of the equation is Martin St. Louis. If you look at the tenures of Martin St. Louis and Dominique Ducharme, one thing is clear. The team is 100 times better under St. Louis, and it comes down to the skilled offensive players clicking.

I don’t need to describe the turnaround Cole Caufield has had under St. Louis, that has been well documented. But every offensive player has had a significant uptick under St. Louis. Unfortunately, Drouin has been injured and we don’t fully know what St. Louis’ impact on Drouin.

If St. Louis does not return, who knows who will be the head coach next year, and it will depend on who is at the helm and if they will have an impact on Drouin’s game.

This year has been another cut short disappointment for Drouin with 6 goals and 20 points in 34 games. Of course, those numbers aren’t necessarily eye-catching, but they might not be as bad as first thought. Over a full 82 game season, Drouin would have about 14.5 goals and just over 48 points.

It depends on your expectations of Drouin, and certainly they are not where they were when he was initially traded for, but those aren’t terrible numbers. Maybe for a $5.5 million player it isn’t great, but almost 50 points in a season is nothing to sneeze at.

In an admittedly very short showing in 2019-20, Drouin was on a 21 goal, 45 point pace. Once again, to me, that isn’t the worst thing in the world. The only problem is that Drouin would have to do something he hasn’t done since entering the NHL. Play an 82 game season.

Especially if St. Louis remains the Montreal Canadiens head coach, it will be extremely interesting to see how Drouin responds to the new season, and if he can return healthy. The odds are stacked against him next year, but we all saw what the odds meant last year in the playoffs.

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