It’s not easy to hide a 6-foot-7 hockey player, but the Ottawa Senators have managed to do it with Ben Harpur.
Harpur, who technically stands six-feet, 6.5 inches in bare feet, has been an up and comer for so long in Ottawa, he’s been forgotten as often as he’s been regarded as a prospect. That he scored his first NHL goal last weekend against San Jose, five-and-a-half years after joining the Senators organization, brought such a mixture of relief and joy to this 23-year-old, he says he “blacked out” after scoring, and didn’t even realize he’d thrust both arms in the air in celebration.
“I definitely didn’t act like I’d been there before,” Harpur says, grinning. “That was my dad’s thing when I was growing up, play it cool when you score. But you only have one first goal in the National Hockey League so I was pretty excited.
“It felt unbelievable. I don’t jump into the rush too often but off that draw, I saw a ton of ice. Smitty (Zack Smith) made a great play to draw that right defenceman, and I just looked up and thought (goaltender Martin Jones) was shifting a bit left, so I aimed right and once I saw it hit the post and go in I kind of blacked out from pure excitement. I just lost it.”
Drafted with Ottawa’s second fourth-round pick in 2013, 108th overall, Harpur is the latest in a long line of big defencemen aiming to fill a gap left by the departure of Zdeno Chara in 2006. Those who cast a tall shadow but couldn’t stick included Jared Cowen, Eric Gryba and Patrick Wiercioch.
In 2018, the question arises – does a team even need a big man on defence when the keys to the game have been handed over to players who bring speed and skill, at forward and defence?
“The game has definitely changed,” Harpur says. “It’s pretty obvious now you can’t just get by with your size. It’s such a fast game. You see the other big guys in the league who are successful, they’re really good skaters.”
In particular, Harpur has patterned his game after Chara and Tyler Myers, a defenceman Harpur saw a lot of during his formative years in southwestern Ontario when Myers was breaking into the NHL with the nearby Buffalo Sabres.
Harpur owes much of his modest successes – 62 NHL games and four professional seasons – to Rick Ferrone, Harpur’s minor hockey coach in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ont. It was Ferrone who moved Harpur to defence from forward in minor midget, Harpur’s OHL draft year. Harpur played three-plus seasons with the Guelph Storm, helping them to an OHL title in 2013-14, before finishing his junior career with the Barrie Colts.
While he was hardly an offensive force – five goals and 26 points in 2014-15 represented his best season – Harpur was given a chance because of his imposing presence. From the age of 15, he recognized he needed to work on his footwork and mobility if he was going to be an NHL player, and he spends ever summer doing power skating and edge drills with Ferrone, who now works out of Hamilton and Stoney Creek, Ont.
Harpur believes there is a place for big defencemen, but only if they can move and move the puck.
“If you can kind of match that speed and play that style of game – the size is an advantage because of my reach,” Harpur says. “I really enjoy playing on the penalty kill because it’s somewhere I can use my reach effectively.”
While Harpur’s possession and zone starts aren’t great, he is plus-3 and is relied on heavily by head coach Guy Boucher to kill penalties and provide some stay-at-home defence on a very young blue line. Harpur is usually paired with Cody Ceci, the veteran of the corps with 391 games played, though he is not yet 25.
Harpur is playing an average of 18:31 per night in the second pairing. Still, he can be seen looking over his shoulder.
“You’re never comfortable in this job,” he says. “As much as you want to be. It would be really nice to be, but you’ve got to have it in your mind that you have to get better every day because there is always someone coming for your job.
“It’s kind of been up and down for a while now. I played in that playoff run a couple of years ago (the 2017 playoffs) and still didn’t have that spot when I came back to camp.”
True enough, Harpur spent 19 games with Belleville last season, and 41 with Ottawa. The depth of prospects in the organization pushes him to improve, he says, providing a lot of “internal motivation.”
FLEETING MOVIE CAREER
Opportunity knocks for Harpur, even when he’s sitting around the house. Last summer, Niagara neighbour Steve Ludzik, the colourful former player, coach and hockey analyst, came to Harpur’s door and asked if he’d like to be in a hockey movie. Harpur’s younger brother was all over it.
So, for about $500 each, the brothers were extras in Toronto promoter Frank D’Angelo’s epic production of The Last Big Save. The movie is produced and directed by D’Angelo, and stars D’Angelo as the hockey goalie who comes out of a 15-year retirement to play Game 7 of a playoff series. Solid plot.
The movie has not been released, but none other than former Senators captain Alexei Yashin features prominently in the trailer. The coaches included Ludzik, Dennis Hull and Marcel Dionne. According to Harpur, everyone was on the ice ready to play, and D’angelo was still in his suit, directing camera crews. Finally, he threw on his hockey gear and played goal.
Actor Dan Baldwin plays one of the coaches. On his Twitter account, Baldwin shows a clip of what he says is a pre-game speech (though not likely part of the film), directed at Yashin.
“Yash, you get paid a lot of money, you better effing score,” Baldwin says.
Yashin, sitting in full uniform and wearing the ‘C,’ smiles.
“It was an experience, that’s for sure,” Harpur says.
Minor league productions are familiar to Harpur. Since 2015, he’s spent 129 games in the AHL with Belleville and Binghamton and a handful with ECHL Evansville. He did earn a one-way contract, and earns a modest $650,000 in 2018-19 and $800,000 next season. Hey, it beats his Canadian acting salary.
In a rare, late-November stretch in which Ottawa won three straight games and gave up just five goals against, Boucher singled out Harpur, who had just returned from a back injury that kept him out a month.
“Just one guy on defence makes a gigantic difference because he’s there 20-some odd minutes on the ice, and opponents have to deal with a six-foot-seven guy that hits, that fights,” Boucher said. “And (he) has the reach and the experience.”
Kiss of death. Thereafter, the Senators gave up ten goals in a pair of 5-2 losses to Montreal, and no one on defence looked any good. Around we go.
After No. 67 Harpur scored his landmark goal in his 60th NHL game, his hometown paper, the Niagara-On-The-Lake Advance pieced together a story on him, with a photo of his first goal puck. The story included a tweet from Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates: “Local talent making us proud. Keep on grinding, Ben.”
Grind he will.
[relatedlinks]
