By Patrick King, Sportsnet.ca
As far as Mathieu Perreault is concerned, it will take more than winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award to mention his name in the same breath as Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy and Patrice Bergeron.
Perreault, a third-year forward for the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, is following in some big footprints left by the choice Titan alumni. However, if you ask Titan captain Jordan Clendenning, the high praise for his teammate certainly isn’t out of place.
“He’s been mentioned in the same breath as them before,” Clendenning said. “If he keeps going at the pace he is and he keeps progressing every year, he’ll be right up there. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Although the Titan franchise has only called Bathurst, N.B. home since 1998, the franchise was formerly based in Laval, Que. where both Lemieux and Bossy honed their skills prior to dominating the National Hockey League. Bergeron, meanwhile, has been a force ever since his arrival with the Boston Bruins in 2003.
While Perreault isn’t being compared to the Titan alumni, the current face of the franchise is flattered by the compliment.
“It’s fun to hear and it makes me feel good and appreciated,” he said. “I’d like to keep that string going.”
Unlike his predecessors, Perreault is one of the smaller players in the league at 5-foot-9 and 166 pounds. As the bigger players in the Québec Major Junior Hockey League have learned, Perreault’s size should be measured by his heart, rather than his stature.
“A lot of guys his size, when they get hit they’ll stay down,” Clendenning said. “With him, he gets right back up and gets back in the play and never shies away from traffic and never shies away from the corners.”
“Mathieu is small but he plays like a big player,” Titan head coach Denis Francoeur added. “He can play a strong game along the boards, he can crash the net and he’s a great passer and a great shooter.”
Although his size may have been viewed as a deterrent in the past, Clendenning believes Perreault’s style is ideally suited for the NHL given the way the game is now called.
“With the new NHL rules and with the way the game is changing, I think it’s only changing in his favour,” he said. “Guys like (Daniel) Briere and (Martin) St. Louis have opened a lot of doors for players like Mathieu.”
Perreault, who was drafted in the sixth round of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft by the Washington Capitals, is playing without his right-hand man from last season in Thomas Beauregard. The duo combined for 243 points last season and although Beauregard is gone this season, it didn’t take Perreault long to find chemistry with newly acquired right-winger Tomas Svoboda.
“I’m pretty much a playmaker and it made my job easy because every time I gave (Beauregard) the puck, he scored,” Perreault said. “This year I’m playing with Svoboda and he’s pretty much the same kind of player.”
As much as Perreault has enjoyed the individual accolades, there’s one thing he wants more than anything this season and that’s to win a championship. However, the makeup in Bathurst is a little bit different this season.
In addition to playing with new linemates, Perreault and his teammates needed to adjust to a new head coach. Both players, however, agreed the adjustment period with Francoeur was short.
“For the most part the system we’re playing right now is the same one as we did last year,” Clendenning said.
Just like the system from last season, the goal of winning a league championship remains intact. The Titan came close two seasons ago, marching all the way to the semifinal. Although they were eliminated in seven games by the Québec Remparts in the semifinal in the 2006 playoffs, the Titan saw what it took to make a run.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” the Titan captain said. “We’re not where we want to be yet but we definitely have the tools to bring a championship back to Bathurst… I don’t think anyone doubts that.”
“That’s our goal this year, to win the championship,” Perreault said. “There are a lot of good teams in this league… (But) we think we can beat any team in this league.”
When asked how he would like to be remembered by the fans in Bathurst, Perreault responded simply by saying, “as a hard worker.” His head coach and teammate, however, weren’t quite so modest.
“I’m very impressed with Mathieu’s game and he’s going to leave great memories for the fans,” Francoeur said.
“He’s just a very exciting player,” Clendenning added. “It’s worth the price of admission just to come watch him play.”
And while he doesn’t find it fitting right now, should Perreault help his team win a championship he might warm up to the idea of being mentioned in the same breath as his Titan alumni.
