Adam Proteau introduces an exclusive THN Archive story and details what a THN subscription will get for readers. Vol. 73, No. 6, May 11, 2020 [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjA2MDg5MzcwODkxOTg2ODUx/vol73no6-thn-archive.jpg] Vol. 73, No. 6, May 11, 2020 New York Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere has enjoyed an excellent season. In this cover story from The Hockey News’ Draft Preview edition in 2020 (May 11, 2020 cover date) [https://archive.thehockeynews.com/issue/479434/58327?t=THE%20ONE%20AND%20ONLY], senior writer Ken Campbell wrote about Lafreniere’s climb through the junior ranks and into the top part of the NHL draft. (And here’s your regular reminder: for access to The Hockey News Archive [https://archive.thehockeynews.com/], you can visit THN.com/Free [http://thn.com/Free] and subscribe to the magazine.) Lafreniere became the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NHL draft after an incredible junior hockey career with the QMJHL’s Rimouski Oceanic team. In his final year with the Oceanic, the now-22-year-old posted 77 assists and 112 points in just 52 games. And he also starred for Team Canada in the World Men's Under-18 Championship and the World Junior Championship, posting four goals and 10 points in only five games in the latter tournament. That impressed people from across the hockey world, including TSN analyst Craig Button. “Right from the drop of the puck in that tournament, it was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” Button said. “There was none of this dipping your toe into the water. It was like, ‘I’m here to play, I’m here to contribute and I know I can.’ There’s a difference between ‘I think I can’ and ‘I know I can.’ He had that ‘I know I can’ right from the get-go.” This season, Lafreniere made a huge jump in his performance, generating 28 goals and 57 points in 82 games. The Rangers are rather pleased they selected him, and though he needed a couple of years to acclimate to the NHL level, hockey experts were fully expectant he would rise above his peers and make a major impact in hockey’s top league. “Until you see a guy up against NHL players, you don’t really know how he’s going to react,” one scout told Campbell. “But he has the size, hockey sense, competitiveness, strength. There’s nothing lacking in his game.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ONE AND ONLY Vol. 73, No. 6, May 11, 2020 By Ken Campbell There’s a French saying that describes a person who is at ease with themself. It goes bien dans sa peau, which literally means “good in one’s own skin.” This seems to be an easy thing to do if you’re Alexis Lafreniere. It’s not a charmed life, but it’s close. Growing up in the idyllic Montreal suburb of St-Eustache, Lafreniere owns a story that is not uncommon. Solid foundation with a good family, outstanding in both baseball and hockey until one of them demanded all of his time, good in school, has his priorities straight. You know the drill. “I think when you have a chance to do what you love every day, you cannot help but feel good in your own skin,” said Lafreniere earlier this season. “I am truly passionate about the game, and I get to live out my dream every day, and so I find a lot of happiness in that.” Searching for controversy, character flaws, some point when the young man showed an embarrassing lack of judgment? Nothing to see here, folks. Well, not nothing, but not a whole lot of grist for the mill. There was the time in November when his team, the Rimouski Oceanic of the QMJHL, was fined $1,000: $500 for verbal abuse of an official and another $500 for inappropriate language to an opponent – for Lafreniere’s actions late in a game. The fine was a pittance when compared to the number of bums he’s put in the seats at the Sun Life Financial Coliseum the past three seasons. Then, not long after he led Canada to gold at the World Junior Championship, there was a three-game suspension he received for a chicken-wing headshot to an opponent who was looking down to corral a puck at the red line. “Alexis welcomes this decision with humility and respect,” read the Oceanic’s statement in response to the suspension. Sheesh. By the time Lafreniere had served that suspension, the only one of his junior career, he had also served notice that what was once a very small field of candidates for the No. 1 overall selection in the 2020 NHL draft had been narrowed down to one. And what was once a fairly close race had become a rout. Whenever the league does hold the draft, Lafreniere will become the first Quebec-born player to go No. 1 overall since Marc-Andre Fleury was taken by Pittsburgh in 2003. Lafreniere’s performance in the WJC – where he wasn’t just the best draft-eligible player, wasn’t just Canada’s best player, but was the best player in the whole tournament – cemented it. Even in this modern world of exceptional status and generational players and younger and younger phenoms accomplishing eye-popping things, being that dominant a player on that big a stage was impressive for someone of Lafreniere’s youthfulness. Even though the needle has moved toward younger players in recent years, the WJC is still regarded as a tournament where 19-year-olds rule. But it wasn’t the first time Lafreniere has stood out among players older than him. Back in 2018, after the Oceanic lost in the first playoff round – through no fault of Lafreniere, who had four goals and seven points in seven games – he played in the World Under-18 Championship, six months before his 17th birthday. Among such teenage stars as Jack Hughes and Cole Caufield, Lafreniere did not disappoint. The hockey world already knew how good Lafreniere was after he became the first 16-year-old to score 40 goals in the QMJHL since Sidney Crosby. He ended up leading Canada in scoring with four goals and six points in five games. “Right from the drop of the puck in that tournament, it was like, ‘Whoa,’” said TSN director of scouting Craig Button. “There was none of this dipping your toe into the water. It was like, ‘I’m here to play, I’m here to contribute and I know I can.’ There’s a difference between ‘I think I can’ and ‘I know I can.’ He had that ‘I know I can’ right from the get-go.” Then, four months later in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, again playing among top prospects for the 2019 draft, Lafreniere tied for the tournament scoring title and led Canada with five goals and 11 points in five games. He had a goal and an assist in Canada’s controversial overtime win versus Team USA in the semifinal – Canada scored the tying goal after time expired in the third period, but the goal stood – and added two goals and an assist in a 6-2 romp over Sweden in the final. “I love being in high-pressure situations,” Lafreniere said. “Because I see pressure as a privilege and not like a weight on my shoulders. I want to be on the ice when the game is on the line. It’s a magical feeling, and it’s what I live for.” There is a reason why Lafreniere is doing this, aside from his otherworldly talent, of course. And that is his Oct. 11, 2001, birthdate makes him a “late birthday” in hockey vernacular. Had he been born a month earlier, he would have been in the conversation with Hughes and Kaapo Kakko for first overall pick in 2019. What is perceived as an enormous handicap for players when they are young and developing has actually worked to Lafreniere’s advantage. Despite being younger than his peers, size has never been an issue for him. And being a late birthday has allowed him to play three years of junior hockey before his draft year as opposed to the customary two. It’s no coincidence many scouts believe Lafreniere will be the only player from the 2020 draft class to step directly into the NHL next season. In fact, had the QMJHL season not been halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lafreniere was a good bet to become the second-highest scorer in Oceanic history. With four games remaining, Lafreniere sat fourth all-time with 114 goals and 297 points in 173 games, just two points behind Michel Ouellet and six behind Crosby. There was no way he was catching Brad Richards, who put up 143 goals and 432 points in just 190 games. Like Richards and Crosby (twice) before him, Lafreniere also won a scoring championship. It also helps that Lafreniere has good bloodlines. His father, Hugo, is 6-foot-4 and can hit a softball a ton. Just ask opponents of Erabliere Labelle in the Old Stove Softball League in St-Eustache. And if you check out the women’s Thursday night division in DekHockey St-Eustache, you’ll find Lafreniere’s mother, Nathalie Bertrand, was third in league scoring with five goals and nine points in seven games for Le Generaldine when the season was suspended. Lafreniere attributes his quiet but unwavering confidence to his family. “My family has a big role to play in that,” he said. “My family plays a lot of sports. My dad plays softball, my mom plays dek hockey and softball, and my sister plays competitive soccer. We are all very competitive and passionate about sports. When you grow up in an environment like that it helps build your character.” So just how good is Lafreniere going to be as an NHL player? Well, he’s one of those rare left wingers who is capable of driving a line and is more of a playmaker than a pure scorer. And no, he will probably never be converted to center, a position he has never played in his life. There is no need to put him in the middle of the ice for him to play a 200-foot game. One of the unique things about Lafreniere’s game is his adaptability in that he can play it any way you like it. He’d prefer it be based on skill and speed, but he’s prepared to engage in trench warfare if that’s what is necessary, all of which makes matching up against him difficult. His compete level is extraordinarily high, and he has two assets that will prove to make him a dangerous offensive player for a long time – superior on-ice vision and a deadly wrist shot. Think Joe Sakic. It’s that good. “Until you see a guy up against NHL players, you don’t really know how he’s going to react,” said one scout. “But he has the size, hockey sense, competitiveness, strength. There’s nothing lacking in his game.” Said another scout: “As teams take away the playmaking, he’ll become more dangerous scoring because he’s so smart. He’s really, really competitive, and this comes as part and parcel of maturing, but he’s become more edgy as time has gone on. To the point where he’s like, ‘You want to come near me? Take this.’” Another scout marveled at how, during the WJC, Lafreniere was able to shine even more because he was playing with the best teenagers in the world. It’s one thing to make major junior players better by driving the play and working off their rhythms. It’s another to do that with the top players in that age cohort without having the luxury of playing with them prior to the tournament. “To play with top-end players, you have to know when to get the puck into each others’ hands at the right time,” said the scout. “Alexis understands. Alexis understands when he’s got to shoot, when he can make the pass, who he’s going to pass it to. Those are all things that transfer to the NHL, understanding what’s unfolding in front of you and the response needed. It speaks to exceptional IQ. Players can think about the immediate play, but they don’t understand what the next play is. Alexis has all that and more.” So, in what has become an annual exercise, you go to tankathon.com/nhl [http://tankathon.com/nhl] and use the lottery simulator to determine which team will pick first overall. Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion has acknowledged that doing just that has become part of his morning routine. So you do it 25 times and the Senators come up a total of nine times, four times with their own pick and five with the pick they acquired from San Jose in the Erik Karlsson trade. Now wouldn’t that be a kick in the pills? It’s not Guy Lafleur, whom the California Golden Seals would have chosen first overall in 1971 if they hadn’t traded the pick for Ernie Hicke and the No. 10 selection, but years from now it might hurt almost as much. The last-place Detroit Red Wings come up five times, the Los Angeles Kings three times, the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks twice and the Winnipeg Jets, Arizona Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets and New Jersey Devils all hit pay dirt once. But assuming the NHL stays with the draft lottery as currently constituted, all it takes is one draw. There’s a good chance that wherever Lafreniere ends up next season will test his resolve. If the NHL standings remain the same as when the season paused, there’s a 43.5-percent chance Lafreniere ends up either in Ottawa or Detroit. But he’s done this kind of thing before, moving hundreds of miles away from the comforts of home to play in Rimouski, a team that won a draft lottery of its own to get him, despite having only a 14-percent chance of landing the first pick in 2017. And as was the case with the Oceanic, the payoff is that within a couple of years, Lafreniere will be well on his way to developing into an impact player. The possibilities in Ottawa, where they might have to open a daycare to manage all their young talent, are particularly intriguing. Wherever he goes, Alexis Lafreniere will carry with him those homegrown lessons. “My parents raised me to be confident in myself and my abilities, be humble and live in the present moment,” he said. “I try to live that way. I realize that I am very lucky.” And so will be the team that gets him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Hockey News Archive is an exclusive treasure trove of more than 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 articles exclusively produced for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until this day. Visit the archives at THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com [http://subscribe.thehockeynews.com/]
