CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Wide-eyed and mouth mostly agape, Samuel Poulin shook his shoulders as if to wake himself up, glided forward a bit and began participating in his first semi-official performance with the Penguins.
This was a three-on-three, rink-turned-sideways, USA Hockey-inspired drill Mike Sullivan loves. And for a prospect with a power forward's pedigree, one would think it'd be a dream.
Until ...
Ugh. Not one spill but two.
But if this was to be Poulin's first test, however infinitesimal, as the franchise's first pick in the NHL Draft a few days ago, how he responded just might have meant something.
A couple other rotations passed as he waited out by the blue line. Same look. Same shake of the shoulders as he began again. Only this time, he skated in straight lines. And he lowered one of those shoulders and leveled an opponent as he blew by. And he whisked through the slot, maintaining possession on a hard backhand curl along a single blade. And he spun back with equal force before whipping a shot toward the net.
That's how it went the rest of the 45-minute session. One. Straight. Line.
I had to ask: What changed?
"For me?" he'd come back, beaming, "I started having fun."
Don't inflate this. I'm certainly not. But it was fun. And it powerfully supported the impression he made on me in Vancouver, where he casually referred to his style as occasionally 'dirty,' and where that same smile -- almost frighteningly reminiscent of Ulf Samuelsson's -- shone upon each mention of his passion for the game.
This kid's a firecracker wrapped in the frame of a bulldog. And once he gets going, whether that takes a year or two or more, all of this will translate well in Pittsburgh.
• Getting going might be Poulin's issue. Meaning his skating.
Once he revs it up, to repeat, no one's going to slow him down. On a later, full-rink, two-on-one drill, Poulin came down the right side, decided he'd rather take the puck to the net himself and again plowed the shoulder into the defenseman and shoved him back into the goaltender. The outcome wasn't a shot, which was unfortunate, but the sight was striking.
This is what head scout Patrik Allvin meant when he told me in Vancouver that Poulin's focus needs to be on accelerating the shorter, quicker bursts. But there's no one in hockey who'd disagree that those are easier to coach up.
• Overall, though, no, there's no fatal flaw with his skating. And anyone who declared him as having one, meaning leading up to the draft, simply hasn't seen him.
• This was the first chance I'd had to ask Poulin about his lifelong bud, Nathan Legare, being picked after him by the Penguins:
• Wondering why the Penguins parted with three lower picks to move up and get Legare at 74th overall?
Wonder no more: One of their scouts told me at camp that they had Legare ranked "in the 20s." And once they saw him falling, falling, falling, enough pressure was applied to Jim Rutherford to pull off the trade.
"Our guys really like him," the scout said.
And what do they like?
Legare himself tackled this: "My compete level, the way I shoot the puck ... those are the things they like in me."
No kidding.
• The Penguins don't currently have a player like either of these two. That's as kindly as I can put that. Zach Aston-Reese has that potential, but he's got to stay in the mix for more than a handful of games at a time.
• Speaking of second-rounders: Calen Addison, the second-rounder in 2018, was covered on this day by Dave Molinari. Likewise for Zachary Lauzon, the second-rounder in 2017, covered by Taylor Haase.
• Oh, and one more: Filip Hallander, the other second-rounder in 2018, just might be the top prospect in the system. At least he'd have to have been considered that before this draft.
I spent a healthy amount of time Wednesday with Hallander and came away duly impressed. He spent all of last season playing with adults in Sweden's top league -- sixth on Timra with seven goals, 14 assists in 45 games -- and he'll stay there another year at age 19. And there's a lot to like: He's 6-1, 190, he spent all of the past winter at left wing, he's swift and skilled, he's mature beyond his years, and he told me his top priority is becoming better defensively.
Role model: Oskar Sundqvist.
"He's a Swede, too, and I followed the road he took, starting here and then winning the Stanley Cup in St. Louis," Hallander told me. "It's impressive. And I know that's a lot of what I need to be. The coaches here talk about being hard to play against. I like that. I want that to be my style."
• What's stupid about the NHL's agreement with the Canadian junior leagues, Part Eleventy Billion: Poulin and Legare are both physically mature, unusually so for being 18. It's above my pay grade to suggest either could be ready for the AHL this coming season. But, assuming one or both were, they can't go. They'd have to be sent back to their Quebec junior teams and basically be men against boys for another full winter.
That's where bad habits can be formed, as we witnessed when Daniel Sprong was forced to return to Charlottetown and scored almost at will. There's no urgency to prioritize backchecking or other traits needed to blossom into an NHL-complete player.
Someone needs to scrap this already. Or at least carve out a palatable loophole or two. Being blunt here, protecting the sanctity of the Canadian junior system -- the only reason for this policy -- isn't as important as it once was. I sat there in Vancouver and heard an awful lot of names called from all over the planet.
The total breakdown:
National Hockey LeagueThat's not exactly some Canadian tsunami. And broken down by leagues, of the 217 players picked, only 71 -- 28 from the WHL, a once-unthinkably low 25 from the OHL, and 18 from the QMJHL -- were from the three Canadian junior leagues.
No need to stunt prospects' growth for that, sorry.
It's taken three Penguins development camps, but I finally took a portrait I like of Austin Lemieux .... Not his fault. I think I'm finally just understanding how cameras work. #DKPS #Penguins pic.twitter.com/GIHmZfbq0G
— Matt Sunday (@mattsunday) June 26, 2019
• Austin Lemieux won't reach the NHL, but a local player reaching NCAA Division I -- he'll be a sophomore at Arizona State -- is the sort of thing we still celebrate in Pittsburgh, and he's done it on merit. And despite an unfair magnifying glass on everything he's done since his old man once popped five goals against the Blues on the day he was born.
I've got to admire that. Austin could've just said, 'You know, I'm gonna go be a rocket scientist or something,' and eschewed any and all comparisons. But he, too, loved the game, and he's worked like hell to play it at a relatively high level.
• I once asked Roberto Clemente Jr. about something similar. His response, in essence, was that he knew he could never be his dad in any way. But he also knew he loved baseball and wanted to do it to the best of his ability. Multiple injuries, chiefly to his knee and back, kept him from rising above three years of A-ball.
Roberto Jr. since became involved in an array of initiatives, some built on independent business ventures, others in charitable areas to honor his father's legacy. That's a life well lived.
• Hey, we've got a Morning Java at rinkside:
• Funniest sight of the day, by far, was the long row of evaluators flanking Rutherford in the boss' giant gondola overlooking the rink. All that was missing was the military procession of soldiers and tanks.
• Dave and Taylor will be back at the rink Thursday morning for Day 2. I'll be yelling at people on the radio. Then we'll all be on hand for the annual scrimmage Friday night.
Thanks for reading this!
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins development camp, Cranberry, Pa., June 26, 2019 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
