Montreal Canadiens: Analytics Can’t Save Jonathan Drouin Anymore
By Scott Cowan
It’s a trade Montreal Canadiens fans will never be able to live down, and it’s a trade I’m sure Jonathan Drouin wishes never happened sometimes.
Yes, the financial returns from it for Drouin were great, but the mental ones were very much not, and someway somehow, I find myself talking about Drouin again, as much as every Canadiens fan, man, woman, child, animal, alien or otherwise would like to forget he ever played here.
As has been discussed to no end, there’s an aspect to Drouin’s story that is tragic just as much as his tenure here was disappointing, but that doesn’t change one thing. That Jonathan Drouin will never be the player he was expected to be when the Tampa Bay Lightning selected him third overall in the 2013 NHL Draft.
After a three-season span that saw him record just 10 goals in 136 games collectively, Drouin’s future in Montreal was pretty much set in stone, though his one in the NHL was a bit more open. Coaches and GMs alike saw potential, and thought they might be able to fix a bit of what made Drouin lose sight of his abilities with the Canadiens.
At the end of the day the skill was still evident if only ever, ever so briefly, and ultimately Drouin got an opportunity most players dream of. Playing for the Colorado Avalanche alongside superstar forward Nathan MacKinnon and one of the best supporting casts in the NHL, one that turned former Canadiens fourth-liner Artturi Lehkonen into a consistent 20-goal, 50 point threat, a role Montreal simply never gave him even a single opportunity to flourish in.
In almost every sense of the word, this was Drouin’s chance to prove a Canadiens fan base that had soured and subsequently turned on him wrong, and showcase more of what once made him such a highly sought-after prospect to begin with.
However, there’s an age-old adage I run by in sports. You can repair your body as many times as it will allow, but you can almost never repair your mind. Once an athlete is mentally shattered, it’s something that can sometimes be impossible to come back from, and in my opinion, Drouin is one such example.
After documenting his struggles with anxiety and insomnia due to the pressure of playing in Montreal (issues I relate and empathize with completely and wholeheartedly) Drouin will never be the player Canadiens fans expected of him, no matter if it’s in Montreal or Colorado.