'I still got it': Why Canada’s Doughty is determined to prove doubters wrong

MONTREAL — Drew Doughty first began worrying about missing out on Team Canada while he was lying on the ice in the pre-season, wincing in pain with a busted left ankle.

Before the trainers helped him off the sheet. 

Before early X-rays gave him hope that he’d be healed in six weeks. 

Before the MRI revealed a more complicated fracture that would sideline him for who knows how many months.

“I’m not even joking you,” Doughty says. “I honestly thought about it instantly. And once they gave me the real timeline, which was, like, 16 weeks or whatever, then I was like: (Expletive), I'm not gonna make it.”

Spoiler alert: He did make it.

But not without pain and frustration, desire and uncertainty.

“The Olympics is probably the most special. There's no doubt about that. But because I haven’t done it in so long, this tournament means the world to me,” Doughty says.

“I just want to represent my country… and there’s nothing like playing with the best players in the world.”

First, let’s flashback to the 2010 Olympic Games. 

Doughty, the youngest member of that golden Vancouver team, was but a 20-year-old kid patrolling a blueline alongside Hall of Famers like Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger.

He was nervous and deferential to the veterans. Cautious and careful. He was tiptoeing into round-robin action, quick to get the puck off his stick and give it to someone with a deeper résumé, lest he turn it over. 

In short: Doughty wasn’t playing like himself. 

Steve Yzerman, who picked the roster, walked straight up to Doughty in Canada’s dressing room after a couple games. 

“Hey. I chose you for this team because of the player you can be, the player you are,” Yzerman said. “You need to step up and play the way you play.” 

Message received.

“Ever since then, I kinda rode off into the sunset type thing,” Doughty says. 

Today, the sun is closer to setting on Doughty’s 17-season Hall of Fame career.

But don’t dare tell the two-time gold medallist and two-time Cup champ that he doesn’t belong here, defending against the dazzling twenty-something at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“I see things, you know? Even a lot of people (questioning) me making this team. I see things,” says Doughty, the chip on his shoulder swelling into a boulder. “I’m not maybe the same player I was in 2016 or something — but I still got it.

“I want to be playing big games. I want to be playing the Stanley Cup Final. So, I think it’s just good for me to be here, to resurrect my career a little bit. I think a lot of people have me written off with my game, but I want to show them they’re wrong here.”

To even get a chance to stick it to the doubters and ageists — the critics who suggested MacKenzie Weegar or Chris Tanev or Evan Bouchard should be here instead of Doughty — the gap-toothed minutes-muncher needed to pour in serious rehab work. 

From his Sept. 24 injury to his Jan. 29 return to action with the Kings, Doughty spent 129 gruelling days “working my b---- off” to make Team Canada.

“It sucked. I’m not gonna lie. Like, coming back from injury is brutal. You do the same stuff every day. You work your butt off. You get bag skated every day. It’s brutal,” Doughty says.

“I just kept a straight mindset, and I had this (tournament) in the back of my mind the whole time.”

The early wait wasn’t awful. 

Doughty’s kids keep him busy. He has a cluster of retired teammates to hang out with in Manhattan Beach. And he understood why Canada’s management group wouldn’t name an injured skater to the initial roster in December. He knew he was on the radar as a potential replacement.

It wasn’t until he resumed skating with the Kings that frustration set in. Doughty’s cardio was back to normal. He felt he was ready for game action; the team made him wait about another month after he was able to jam his ankle into a skate boot.

“That's when, mentally, I kind of went in the hole, and I started getting pissed off. Because I’m sick of bag skating. I was sick of practising, and I just wanted to play,” Doughty explains.

“Thankfully, they didn’t give in to me as early as I actually wanted to, because that was probably the right decision.”

Now, Doughty is out to prove that Team Canada also made the correct call.

—

It was snowing Saturday evening on the tarmac in Detroit when Jon Cooper cleared security and called Doughty on the West Coast after a Lightning win to tell him the good news.

That Team Canada had been impressed by his first few games back with the Kings. That he would be the right-shot substitute for Alex Pietrangelo.

Doughty was in the middle of a back-to-back and trying to tuck in a game-day nap before logging 31:09 in a shootout with the Ducks.

“Coop called me, and he was talking to me for, like, five minutes, and didn't say: ‘You made the team.’ So, I was actually thinking I was not making it,” Doughty recalls. 

“Then he’s like, ‘Yeah, I need you on the team. I don’t need you for the player you were in 2010, 2014. I need you for a different role.’”

Cooper says Doughty took the news “like he won the lottery.” Third pair? Fewest minutes among healthy Canadian D-men in Game 1? Bring it on.

“And you want that. You still want that passion,” Cooper says. “When we talked about potential roles and where he fits into the group, basically, he was like, ‘You don’t need to do that. You just tell me where and when. And if it’s never, then so be it.’”

Doughty’s ankle still can’t spin the way it used to. He describes Wednesday’s OT thriller over Sweden as “the fastest hockey game I’ve ever played in.” He got dashed up and lamented one of his gaps.

But with Shea Theodore down, he’s needed. For his leadership, his levity and his love of the thing.

So, when Doughty finally got off the phone with Cooper, knowing he’d made Team Canada, was he able to nap? 

“Finally napped. I was struggling to nap because I knew about (the possibility of) making the team for a week. I had that in the back of my head all the time. And then that one? I shut ’er down hard,” Doughty smiles. 

“Thanks, Petro.”