Nathan MacKinnon scored the goal; Jonathan Drouin was credited with the second assist. That’s what the box score will read if, years from now, when both players are stars in the NHL, someone decides to dig up the report from an innocuous late November game in 2012 when the duo played side by side, night after night in humble Halifax. It won’t say that Drouin’s helper, setting up the first goal of seven for the Mooseheads in a romp over Chicoutimi, may have been the second assist to end all second assists. And that’s a shame, because it was a hell of an effort.
It was just over three minutes into the opening period when Drouin jumped on a bouncing puck at centre ice, settled it down and weaved past two opponents—threading the puck through the space between their skates and sticks while dodging their vain efforts to impede his progress—as he charged toward the offensive zone. He set up a give-and-go with his linemate Martin Frk at the blueline, taking Frk’s return pass in full stride as he streaked toward the right corner boards. There, Drouin was met by another Chicoutimi defender who put himself between Drouin and the puck—typically a good strategy when you’re significantly larger than the guy trying to score. But Drouin calmly sliced his stick around his foe, handling the puck on either side of him like a baker icing opposite ends of a cake. Eventually, Drouin lost the edge on his left skate, dropping to his knees and flicking a blind pass back to Frk as the defender drove Drouin’s head into the boards. Drouin had attracted so much interest that MacKinnon was left sitting alone in the slot, where he took a pass from Frk and put it in the back of the net, one of the easier goals he’ll ever score. It was a hypnotizing bit of playmaking from Drouin, who never even seemed to look at the puck as he willed it to do anything he pleased. And all he got for his trouble was the second assist.
The play was a microcosm of Drouin’s existence this year, the 17-year-old’s second at the major junior level. He is one of the most innately talented and proficient players in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, if not all of junior hockey. On a nightly basis he blows away scouts and fans alike with deft stickhandling and uncanny vision. He tallied at least a point in all but three of the 24 games he played for the Mooseheads before heading to Team Canada’s world junior selection camp, and two or more points in 14 of them. But all anyone ever wants to talk about is his linemate. Not that the attention bestowed on MacKinnon is undeserved. Think of it this way: Drouin-MacKinnon is a lot like Lennon-McCartney. Both are equally responsible for their group’s success, and it’s very hard to say who is truly more talented. But, for one reason or another, the girls always screamed louder for Paul.
MacKinnon, of course, has the hype machine constantly churning in full gear around him. He’s from the same hometown as Sidney Crosby; when he was 14, he was whisked away to play at the same Minnesota boarding school Crosby did; and, for what seems like years now, he has been widely considered the unequivocal choice for first overall selection in the 2013 NHL entry draft. But talk to the people who watch the Mooseheads play on a regular basis and they’ll tell you that perception doesn’t necessarily match reality. “Drouin is a lot closer to MacKinnon than people are ready to say,” insists one veteran NHL scout based in Quebec. “It’s like he has eyes all over his head. He’s so smart—obviously smarter and more skilled than the players he plays against.”
This is extraordinary praise considering Drouin was still playing midget AAA hockey a year ago. The Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., native was selected second overall in the 2011 QMJHL draft—MacKinnon went first—but decided he wasn’t quite ready to play and asked the Mooseheads to leave him in AAA for more seasoning. Drouin was definitely undersized—he remains much shorter than the five-foot-eleven he’s listed at—and needed more time in the weight room before enduring the physical toll of major junior hockey. But he wanted time to work on the mental aspect of his game as well. “There would have been some pressure, but he had his mind made up and only came in when he thought he was ready,” the NHL scout says. “Give him credit for understanding the game.”
Drouin officially joined the Mooseheads in December 2011, notching two assists in his first game, including one on the game winner, and was a force throughout the playoffs, scoring the game-winning overtime goal in game seven of the team’s second-round series against the Quebec Remparts. Throughout his first year in Halifax, Drouin worked hard to get stronger and focused on improving his defensive zone play, a frequent criticism of his game from scouts. He carried his offensive prowess over to this season—when he and MacKinnon left Halifax in mid-December to try out for Canada’s entry into the World Junior Championship, Drouin’s 48 points were just four behind MacKinnon’s QMJHL-leading 52. And Drouin had played six fewer games thanks to a shoulder injury in October.
Drouin has been so impressive this season that by January, NHL Central Scouting had him ranked as the third-best prospect in North America, trailing closely behind MacKinnon. “To have two guys like that…” Mooseheads coach Dominique Ducharme begins, trailing off and shaking his head with a grin. He’s sitting in his sparse, undecorated office at Halifax’s Metro Centre shortly after practice and looking at the depth chart on the wall above his desk. Names are moved around a lot on that board, but MacKinnon’s at centre and Drouin’s at left wing on the first line might as well be cemented to the wall. “They always work hard. They’re always improving. They always push themselves,” Ducharme says. “When you work like that, no matter where you are, you’re going to do something great.” Drouin has earned praise from his peers; nearly half the respondents to a recent Sportsnet QMJHL captains poll named him the best pure NHL prospect in the league and more than 85 percent said he has the best hands in the league.
Off the ice, Drouin and MacKinnon are close friends. They carpool to practice and eat sushi together at the same Japanese restaurant three times a week. “Sometimes the spotlight is all on Nathan, but I don’t get bothered by stuff like that,” says Drouin, who speaks quickly and without pauses between his words as if he doesn’t need air. “It’s cool. We don’t really talk about it.” But it’s on the ice where the chemistry between the two is undeniable. In some ways, they complement each other perfectly, with Drouin providing the vision and playmaking that creates scoring chances, while MacKinnon’s blindingly fast skating and nose for the net help turn those chances into goals.
Drouin’s rapport with MacKinnon may be what got him invited to try out for Canada’s junior team, but it was his individual play that earned him a spot as the 13th forward on the squad that travelled to compete in Ufa, Russia, a more-than-difficult feat for a 17-year-old in a lockout year.
Drouin started the tournament mostly playing with MacKinnon, but before Canada’s final game of round-robin play against Russia, coach Steve Spott felt his top line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mark Scheifele and Jonathan Huberdeau—the first, third and seventh picks in the 2011 NHL draft—was underperforming and needed an energy boost. He replaced Huberdeau with Drouin, who scored on a wraparound in the second period—he’d finish the tourney with four points, while MacKinnon had just a lone assist. It may have been the first time in his career that Drouin received top billing over his friend.
Of course, if he was at all excited about finally receiving some attention, he would never let you know about it. And maybe that’s because he knows he’s not the only player in Halifax operating in MacKinnon’s shadow. Mooseheads netminder Zach Fucale has quietly become the top draft-eligible goalie in the country. He hasn’t received the level of attention Drouin has and was not invited to try out for the world junior team. But nearly every scout who goes to see Fucale in action comes away with nothing but positive notes. Hockey Canada goaltending consultant Ron Tugnutt went to see him in late 2011 and caught Fucale on a bad night during which he let in an easy goal early. But what impressed Tugnutt was Fucale’s ability to put the mistake behind him. That kind of mental composure is a rare find in teenaged goalies. “He’s way beyond his years,” Tugnutt said. “[Being a first-round pick] is definitely in reach for him.”
Fucale—who played forward as a kid growing up in Rosemère, Que., but tried playing net on a whim one day and fell in love—has already amassed an extraordinary amount of experience for his age. He became the Mooseheads’ starting goalie just weeks into his rookie season when incumbent starter Anthony Terenzio was lost to a season-ending concussion. He wound up playing 58 regular-season games—plus 17 more in the playoffs—as a 16-year-old, something that rarely, if ever, happens at the major junior level. He set a QMJHL record for most wins as a rookie with 32 and this season became the fastest 17-year-old to notch 50 wins in league history. “He grew a lot from that [early experience],” Ducharme says. “He obviously still has a lot of things to improve. But if there’s one thing I’m not worried about it’s his work ethic.”
Fucale’s greatest strength is his positioning. He’s worked on the fluidity of his movement between the posts with Mooseheads goaltending coach Eric Raymond almost every day since he arrived in Halifax and is now at a point where he’s rarely caught out of position. Most scouts draw comparisons to Buffalo’s Ryan Miller because of his ability to square up the puck and his unflappable calmness in net. For a 17-year-old, Fucale is as tranquil as they come. “He’s such a smart kid and so mature,” Ducharme says. “He’s starting to recognize situations he’s seen before and he’s making adjustments to them. That’s how you get better.”
There’s a quiet confidence and an ease to the bilingual Fucale that is not readily apparent in his teammates, or most kids his age for that matter. He’s thoughtful and talks about the game like a coach might, breaking it down into positives and negatives, always searching for a way to make progress every day he’s at the rink. “I work as hard as I can all the time. Whatever I can take out of a day is good for me,” Fucale says. “Even if it’s just a little detail.” His mettle has been tested in that regard this year; Halifax has been so dominant that he rarely faces many shots. Through early January, Fucale and Rimouski Oceanic goaltender Philippe Desrosiers had both played nearly 1,700 minutes on the season, but Fucale had faced 671 shots while Desrosiers had seen more than 900. It’s on Fucale to stay mentally focused and sharp through the long periods of game time when he’s a spectator.
Soon the course of prospect advancement—so fascinating and ludicrous at the same time—will figure out just what these kids are going to be. For now, the trio in Halifax are coated in optimism and promise. But eventually, the talent will be separated from the hype. The unforgiving reality of ability—and often durability—in this performance-based business will write the history of three young men. All three could very well go on to long, fruitful NHL careers—or it could all fall apart. Hockey history is littered with the famous flops, the coulda-beens, the sure-thing, can’t-miss, gonna-set-this-league-on-fire prospects who never came to be. And they have all been labelled failures, washouts and disappointments, despite being better than 99.9 percent of the population at what they do. It’s hard enough to be considered a top prospect, harder still to make the final step onto the game’s greatest stage. The spotlights are bright, the reviews come fast and harsh, the audience is unforgiving. And you have to do it all before you’re even old enough to legally calm your nerves with a beer. So maybe sometimes it’s a good thing to be living in the shadow.
This article originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.