SAN JOSE — Patrik Laine thinks he’s better than Auston Matthews and Jesse Puljujarvi. Puljujarvi thinks he’s better than Laine. Matthews just chuckles at it all, particularly Laine’s boisterous claims.
“Everybody has a right to their opinions,” said the Arizona-born Matthews. “That’s his.”
Beyond this Group of Three at the top of the NHL draft, however, you should know there are other players who also feel they might be the best prospect.
Pierre-Luc Dubois of the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles would be such a player. He just states it in a different way, a more measured way.
“I think I’m working in the right direction,” he said today at a Stanley Cup Final media availability. “The way my game’s going up, the way I’ve matured in the last couple of years or so. I gained more than 40 pounds the last two years. I went from 160 to 205.
“I think if I keep working I could be at the top of this draft class, too.”
So there you have it. Dubois, who ended the year jumping past Matthew Tkachuk to be the No. 1 North American prospect on NHL Central Scouting’s list, believes the body of work he put together after Christmas combined with his hockey pedigree should have NHL clubs looking very closely at what he could bring to them if drafted.
He said he was “honoured” to be ranked No. 1 by Central Scouting.
“I think I had a really good second half. There’s a lot of good players in the draft,” he said. “It comes down to an opinion, and I think my second half, playing centre, helped me a lot, showed a different area of my game that maybe people didn’t know about.
“Some have me No. 1, some have No. 5, or No. 4. So maybe I was a little surprised to be No. 1, but I worked really hard and I think I deserved it.”
Dubois is probably the most physically developed of the top players, with a barrel chest and thick legs. He was 6-foot-1, 170 pounds when drafted into the QMJHL by Cape Breton as the fifth pick of the 2014 draft behind defenceman Luke Green (Saint John), centre Pascal Laberge (Gatineau), rearguard Samuel Girard (Shawinigan) and goalie Evan Fitzpatrick (Sherbrooke).
Two years later, he’s now 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, and has surpassed all those players in terms of his status among draft-eligible players. Only Laberge is expected to be an NHL first-rounder this month.
“I was a late bloomer,” said Dubois. “I always had hockey sense. The speed and the strength got there a little later.”
His father is Eric Dubois, a member of the Laval Titan squad that made it to the ’89 Memorial Cup, who was drafted by Quebec but never played an NHL game. His mother is Jill McClure of Atlanta, Ga., – the couple met while Eric was playing for the IHL Atlanta Knights – which accounts for Pierre-Luc’s fluent bilingualism.
“I learned all my English from her,” he said. “English TV, English movies. I spoke French with my dad and at school. At home is mostly English.”
He was born in Montreal, but spent winters in Germany when his father was winding down his pro career with the Schwenninger Wild Wings of the German League. He started learning to play hockey there, and was startled when the coaches barked at him in German.
“I cried,” he said. “Despite that, I have good memories from there.”
The family moved back to North America when his father began to coach, living in Montreal and Baie-Comeau. Two years ago, he moved to Cape Breton to play major junior, enduring lots of travel and time away from his family.
“When I got there I was a kid. Now, I’d say I’m a man,” he said.
The curiosity about Dubois concerns the position he’s most likely to play as a pro. This season, he spent the first half on the wing with Detroit draftee Evgeny Svechnikov and shifty Maxim Lazarev, then moved to centre in the second half between Michael Joly and Giovanni Fiore and put up big numbers down the stretch.
He loves to play right wing despite being a left-handed shot, but wonders if his future is as a pivot. That might not be of major interest to Edmonton, which owns the fourth pick in the draft, but could be very appealing to Vancouver, which drafts fifth. Then again, Columbus has the third pick, and could use a big centre to replace the departed Ryan Johansen.
“I’m more used to wing, but with centre, I like the fact you have more responsibility,” said Dubois. “In the long run, I think I could be a centre in the NHL.”
