I had the pleasure of watching Jonathan Drouin and the
Halifax Mooseheads take on the Charlottetown Islanders in the first game of
what expects to be a long playoff run again for the Mooseheads. The QMJHL
playoffs are a little different than what most people are used to. Rather than
the typical 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7 etc. the “Q” seeds all playoff teams together from
1-16. So Halifax who finished second in the Q with 97 points (Baie-Comeau had
99) is playing Charlottetown who are the #15 seed. On paper this game (and the
whole series really) should be a cake walk for Halifax. Halifax won the game
6-3 out chancing Charlottetown 25-11 and 15-4 at even strength.
Obviously Drouin was the star of this game, not much I can
add that you don’t already know. He looked like an NHL player. He had 8 scoring
chances of his own and set up numerous others. Playing alongside Drouin and not
looking out of place was potential top 5 pick Nikolaj Ehlers. Ehlers finished
the season second on the team to Drouin with 104 points in 63 games (49G, 55A).
What impressed me most about Ehlers wasn’t the impressive skill level, or the
fact that he dominated in the possession game, no it was how his coach trusted
him in all situations. He played the power play obviously, but also received significant
time with Drouin on the penalty kill. From this game anyway it seemed that
Drouin and Ehlers were the team’s top penalty killing forwards. As you probably
know from previous posts, I love players who are trusted to kill penalties. It
shows they are trusted as good defensive players by their coach. The one issue I
had with Elhers was when he was killing a penalty in the second; he took a very
undisciplined slashing penalty in retaliation to being interfered with. It gave
Charlottetown a long 5-3 power play which they ended up scoring on. It wasn’t crucial
in the end result of the game as the score was so one-sided but against a
better team he can’t afford to take those bad penalties.
Turing our attention to the 2015 NHL draft, 16 year old right winger Daniel Sprong stood out for Charlottetown. He had 4 of the 11 scoring chances for Charlottetown.
He came to Charlottetown via the bantam draft going 13th overall in
2013. He has become the team’s best player leading them in all sorts of offensive
categories including goals (30), assists (38), points (68) power play goals (9)
and shots (260). His 1.01 points per game was third among QMJHL rookies, behind
Ehlers, and Vladimir Tkachev. He is already being projected by some mock drafts
to go in the late first round, but I think he could go even higher if he takes
a big jump next season and improves even more. I can honestly see 100 points
for Sprong next season, provided health of course, and a shot of going in the
top 15 in next summer’s draft. He is someone I am definitely going to be
keeping my eye on next season.
Scoring Chances by Period
Team
|
First Period
|
Second Period
|
Third Period
|
Total
|
Charlottetown
|
6(2)
|
3(1)
|
2(1)
|
11(4)
|
Halifax
|
10(4)
|
10(9)
|
5(2)
|
25(15)
|
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